THE 

SEEMING  UNREALITY 

OF   THE 

SPIRITUAL   LIFE 


HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING 


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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 


Kate  Gordon  Moore 


THE    SEEMING   UNREALITY   OF 
THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON    •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA   •    SAN    FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  -  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


The  Seeming  Unreality 
of  the  Spiritual  Life 


THE 

NATHANIEL  WILLIAM  TAYLOR   LECTURES 

FOR  1907 

GIVEN    BEFORE  THE  DIVINITY  SCHOOL 
OF  YALE  UNIVERSITY 


BY 

HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING 

PRESIDENT  OF  OBBRLIN  COLLEGB 


jRcto  fork 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1908 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1908 
By  the  macmillan  company 


Set  up  and  elcctrotyped.     Printed  September,  igo8 


THE     MASON-HENRY     PRESS 
SYRACUSE,      N.     Y. 


PREFACE 

This  book  aims  to  face,  as  straightforwardly 
as  may  be,  the  problem  implied  in  its  title.  It 
seeks  to  speak  directly,  as  frankly  and  simply 
as  possible,  and  yet  with  some  adequacy,  to 
the  fundamental  religious  need  of  men, — to  the 
need  of  all  who  cherish  ideals  of  any  kind.  The 
book  has  been  written,  just  because  this  prob- 
lem of  the  seeming  unreality  of  the  spiritual 
life  was  felt  to  be  fundamental  both  for  thought 
and  life;  and  with  the  hope  that  considera- 
tions, that  had  meant  much  to  the  writer,  in 
the  solution  of  this  problem,  might  not  be  with- 
out helpful  suggestion  for  others.  Its  lines 
of  thought  might  have  been  greatly  extended, 
but  the  intention  has  been  to  treat  the  subject 
suggestively  rather  than  exhaustively,  and  elabo- 
ration of  thought  is  left  to  the  reader. 

A  portion — and  only  a  portion — of  the  ma- 
terial of  the  book  has  been  given  in  different 
forms  in  lectures  at  the  Harvard  Summer  School 
of  Theology,  at  the  Federate  Summer  School 
of  Theology  at  Berkeley,  California,  and  as 
the  Taylor  Lectures  at  Yale  Divinity  School. 
In   the   publication   of   these   discussions   it   has 

V 


VI  PREFACE 

seemed  best,  however,  quite  to  abandon  the  lec- 
ture form.  The  nature  of  the  subject  has  made 
necessary  some  recurrence  of  considerations 
brought  out  in  previous  books,  but  the  argu- 
ment, as  presented,  is  intended  to  form  an  inde- 
pendent whole. 

My  indebtedness  to  others   I   have  tried   to 
make  clear  in  the  course  of  the  discussion. 

HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING. 

Oberlin   College,   February,   1908. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

chapter  Page 

I.     The  Fundamental  Nature  of  the  Inquiry 3 

II.     The  Meaning  of  the  Theme 7 

III.     The  Order  of  the  Discussion 13 

PART  I 
THE  CAUSES  OF  THE   SEEMING   UNREALITY 

Misconceptions 

IV.     Ignoring  Bodily  Conditions 23 

V.     Forgetting  the  Complexity  and  Unity  of  Life 27 

VI.     Knowledge   Never  Merely  Passive 32 

VII.     No   Merely   Theoretical   Solutions 37 

VIII.     The  Practical  Nature  of  all  Belief 52 

IX.     Some  Common  Logical  Fallacies 56 

X.     Some  Traditional  Objections 63 

XL     Difficulty  in  the  Conception  of  God 72 

XII.     The   Difference   Between  the  Scientific  and  Religious 

Problems    79 

XIII.     The   Difference   Between   the   Philosophical    and   Re- 
ligious   Problems 85 

XIV.     The  Spiritual  Life  not  a  Life  of  Strain 90 

XV.     The  Spiritual  Life  not  a  Life  of  Imitation 98 

XVI.     The  Spiritual  Life  not  a  Life  of  Magical  Inheritance  102 

XVII.     The  Spiritual  Life  not  a  Life  of  External  Rules 105 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

Failure  to  Fulfil  Conditions 

chapter  page 

XVIII.     The  Way  into  the  Great  Values m 

XIX.     The  Conditions  of  a  Deepening  Personal  Relation...     117 

The  Inevitable  Limitations  and  Fluctuations  of  our  Natures 
XX.     Limitations  and  Fluctuations  Common  to  All  our  Life     123 
XXL     The  Special  Bearing  of  Limitations  and  Fluctuations 

on   the   Spiritual  Life 131 

XXII.  The  Witness  of  our  Consciously  Best  Hours 136 

A  Purposed  Seeming  Unreality  of  the  Spiritual 

XXIII.  The  Seeming  Unreality  a  Large  Factor  in  our  Moral 

and   Spiritual   Training 141 

XXIV.     The  Special  Religious  Need  of  the  Unobtrusiveness 

of  the  Spiritual 147 

XXV.     Our  Very  Questionings  a  Proof  of  Reality 156 

PART  II 

THE  WAY  INTO   REALITY 

The  Presumptive  Evidence 

XXVI.     The  Test  of  Present  Trends  of  Thought— Historical, 

Philosophical,  Scientific,  Ethical,  and  Social 165 

XXVII.     The  Test  of  Present  Trends  of  Thought— Psycho- 
logical        172 

XXVIII.     Man's  Essential  Need  of  Religion 181 

As  to  the  Theistic  Argument 

XXIX.     Facing   the   Facts   often    Ignored 191 

XXX.     The  Necessary  Limitations  in  the  Argument 199 

XXXI.     The    Main   Lines  of  Argument 202 

As  to  the  Personal  Relation  to  God 

XXXII.     The  Need  of  the  Modern  Man  met  only  in  Christ. .     215 

XXXIII.  The  Needed  Emphases  in  Modern  Religious  Life..     220 

XXXIV.  The  Method  of  the  Spiritual  Life 224 

As  to  Particular  Christian  Doctrines 
XXXV.     Doctrine  as  Expression  of  Experience  with  Christ..     231 
XXXVI.     Illustrated  in  the  Doctrine  of  Personal  Immortality     237 


INTRODUCTION 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  NATURE  OF  THE 

INQUIRY 

Our  deepest  need,  always,  for  any  ideal 
view  or  for  any  ideal  life,  is  faith  in  the  reality 
of  the  spiritual,  faith  in  a  God  who  can  save  us 
from  being  at  constant  war  with  ourselves.  We 
all  need  a  God,  who  can  make  rational  and 
consistent  our  deepest  longings,  aspirations, 
and  purposes;  who  can  save  us  at  least  from 
counting  as  illusions  all  that  in  us  which — our- 
selves being  judges — is  worthiest  and  most 
deserving  to  abide; — who  can  save  us  from 
"glorying  in  having  renounced  that  which  no 
one  has  ever  any  right  to  renounce." 

In  all  this,  religion  does  not  stand  alone;  it 
makes  common  cause  with  every  ideal  interest 
and  aim,  of  whatever  kind.  The  aesthetic,  the 
ethical,  the  philosophical,  the  scientific,  the 
broadly  rational  of  every  sort,  are  equally  con- 
cerned. Our  problem  is  nowhere  that  narrow 
and  mistaken  one  of  the  so-called  "harmony  of 
science  and  religion,"  but  rather  that  more  seri- 
ous question — Have  we  any  justifiable  ideals?  is 
there  any  standard  for  men  and  for  life,  except 

3 


4         THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

a  pettily  utilitarian  one?  When  we  think  our 
life  through  to  the  bottom,  when  we  carry  our 
thought  of  the  world  to  the  farthest  limit 
possible  to  our  thinking,  shall  we  then  find  our 
best  self  an  illegitimate  offspring  of  pride  and 
error,  standing  naked  and  laid  open  unto  that 
eye  of  reason  which  pierces  all  shams?  or 
shall  we  find  that  rational  judgment  itself  forced 
to  own  itself  to  be,  in  common  with  all  other 
ideals,  the  child  of  faith  in  God,  and  of  faith 
in  a  spiritual  world  whose  reality  we  cannot 
doubt  and  continue  to  think  at  all?  This  is 
the  central  question  of  this  little  book. 

A  true  theology  must  face  this  deepest  ques- 
tion, must  do  something  to  answer  this  deepest 
need  of  men.  A  theology,  therefore,  that  under- 
stands itself  cannot  be  an  isolated,  esoteric  in- 
terest of  a  few.  Is  it  not  rather  the  great  attrac- 
tion of  theology  that  to  it,  as  the  science  and 
philosophy  of  religion,  are  most  directly  com- 
mitted the  supreme  interests  of  the  race?  Is 
it  not  even  true  that  one  cannot  continue  in 
philosophy  to  the  end,  without  becoming  a 
theologian?  In  a  very  real  sense,  thus,  it  is 
still  possible  to  think  of  theology  as  "queen  of 
the  sciences,"  never  because  it  seeks  authori- 
tatively to  lord  it  anywhere,  but  queen  because 
it  is  able  to  take  account  of  the  entire  range  of 


THE    FUNDAMENTAL     NATURE    OF    THE    INQUIRY         5 

man's  ideals,  as  no  other  science — and  not  even 
philosophy — has  commonly  felt  free  to  do.  In 
this  sense,  as  the  old  schoolmen  declared,  the- 
ology finds  what  philosophy  only  seeks. 

In  other  words,  one  must  hold  it  to  be 
the  chief  business  of  the  theology  of  any  given 
age  or  year  or  hour,  to  help  to  save  men  from 
"evasion  of  life's  proof,"  to  deliver  them  from 
shame  of  their  best  selves,  to  point  out  the  con- 
ditions upon  which  the  spiritual  life  may  be 
made  indubitably  real.  And  the  theme  of  this 
book  thus  seems  to  be  thrust  upon  the  theo- 
logian as  demanding  proof  even  of  his  right 
to  be  a  worker  in  theology  at  all. 

A  self-respecting  theologian,  certainly,  must 
always  be  profoundly  and  steadfastly  unwill- 
ing to  be  considered  the  hired  advocate  of  a 
little  religious  coterie,  that  can  forget  that  the 
interests  it  defends  are  universal  interests  and 
meet  universal  needs.  Is  it  not  involved  in  the 
very  conception  of  a  religion,  that  it  demands 
universal  recognition?  and  is  not  this  sense, 
as  Lotze  has  called  it,  the  one  respectable  root 
of  fanaticism?  How  can  the  theologian,  then, 
forget  that  he  stands — not  for  the  schoolmen 
nor  for  any  shibboleths  of  the  schools;  not 
for  the  Fathers,  nor  for  any  ostracizing  dog- 
mas of  the  Fathers;    but  for  all  men  and  for 


6        THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

their  right  and  call  to  live  the  highest  life, 
for  room  in  which  a  man  may  stretch  himself 
in  the  farthest  ranges  of  his  being,  for  air  to 
breathe  and  light  to  rejoice  in? 

How  can  it  be,  then,  that  it  should  be  par- 
ticularly charged  against  theology,  that  it  is 
unreal  and  binding,  rather  than  real  and  set- 
ting prisoners  free?  That  such  theology,  so- 
called,  there  has  been,  I  reluctantly  admit.  But, 
nevertheless,  theology  belies  itself,  and  denies 
its  very  reason  for  being,  if  it  fails  to  be 
real  and  freeing — and  freeing  because  it  makes 
the  spiritual  life  indubitably  real.  Our  theme, 
thus,  lies  at  the  very  heart  of  the  theologian's 
problem,  and,  at  the  same  time,  at  the  heart  of 
life.  And  the  theologian  may  call  artist  and 
poet  and  moralist  and  philosopher  and  scien- 
tist, and  every  common  seeker  of  truth  and 
goodness  and  beauty,  and  all  true  lovers,  to 
witness  that  in  this,  his  quest,  he  fights  their 
battles  all,  no  less  than  his  own. 

"Does  God  love,  and  will  ye  hold  that  faith 
against  the  world?" 


II 

THE  MEANING  OF  THE  THEME 

And  what  is  meant  by  the  reality  of  the 
spiritual  life?  How  much,  in  the  first  place, 
should  reality  involve? 

The  value  of  religious  opinions  and  experi- 
ences, it  may  be  said  with  James,  "can  only  be 
ascertained  by  spiritual  judgments  directly 
passed  upon  them,  judgments  based  on  our  own 
immediate  feeling  primarily;  and  secondarily 
on  what  we  can  ascertain  of  their  experimental 
relations  to  our  moral  needs  and  to  the  rest  of 
what  we  hold  as  true.  Immediate  luminous- 
ness,  in  short,  philosophical  reasonableness, 
and  moral  helpfulness  are  the  only  available 
criteria."  In  other  words,  if  the  spiritual  life 
is  to  be  to  us  a  real  and  recognized  power,  it 
must  seem,  first,  an  undoubted  reality;  second, 
to  be  knit  up  with  our  best  thinking  in  other 
spheres;  third,  to  have  clear  significance  for 
life,  as  appeal  and  impulse  to  character,  and 
as  bringing  enjoyment  and  enrichment  into 
life.  That  is  to  say,  the  spiritual  life  must 
justify  itself  to  our  best  judgment  as  real, 
rational,  and  vital.     All  three  elements  are  in- 

7 


8        THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

tended  to  be  included  in  the  assertion  of  the 
reality  of  the  spiritual  life  implied  in  the  theme 
of  this  book. 

In  the  spiritual  life,  as  used  in  the  title,  it 
is  intended  to  include  the  conviction  of  the 
fact  of  the  Christian  God  and  of  our  personal 
relation  to  him,  with  all  that  is  most  directly 
involved  in  these  convictions. 

In  speaking,  now,  of  the  seeming  unreality 
of  the  spiritual  life,  it  is  not,  of  course,  intended 
to  imply  that  a  spiritual — that  is,  religious, 
theistic,  and  Christian — view  of  the  world  is 
ultimately  less  defensible  than  some  other  view. 
Quite  the  contrary.  The  ultimate  ground  and 
meaning  of  the  world  form  a  problem  for  any 
possible  view  that  really  aims  to  be  all-embrac- 
ing, for  the  solution  of  which  it  can  only  offer 
some  hypothesis.  It  is  not  doubted  that  the 
Christian  theistic  hypothesis  is  least  open  to 
objection,  when  the  matter  is  thought  com- 
pletely through. 

But  the  intended  suggestion  of  our  theme 
is  this:  Probably,  the  great  difficulty  for  most, 
in  adopting  the  Christian  point  of  view  and 
coming  into  the  Christian  life,  does  not  arise 
from  doubt  whether  the  Christian  position 
is  capable  of  a  better  final  philosophical  de- 
fense than  any  other  position.     Many  would 


THE    MEANING    OF    THE    THEME  9 

probably  say  that  when  it  comes  to  measuring 
swords  in  logical  defense  of  ultimate  positions, 
the  theistic  and  Christian  view  must  be,  no 
doubt,  counted  the  victor.  But  that  admission, 
though  freely  made,  does  not  satisfy  them. 
Whether  with  full  consciousness  or  not,  another 
and  deeper  difficulty  for  such  minds  lies  be- 
hind the  question  of  the  possible  philosophical 
defense  of  the  Christian  view.  Granting  that 
the  theistic  and  Christian  hypothesis  is  the 
best  of  all  proposed,  still  they  would  say,  why 
is  it  itself  so  hard  to  hold?  Why  is  it  not  more 
clear  and  obvious?  Why  is  so  much  difficulty 
felt  by  many  in  coming  to  the  Christian  view 
at  all,  or,  at  least,  in  justifying  it  rationally, 
after  coming  to  it?  Why  is  the  fact  of  such 
a  God  as  Christ  reveals,  and  of  our  relations 
to  him,  not  as  indubitable,  for  example,  as  the 
existence  of  other  persons  and  our  relations  to 
them?  Why  do  not  the  facts  of  the  spiritual 
world  seem  as  real  to  us  as  the  facts  of  the 
material  world?  In  a  word,  why  does  the 
spiritual  life  seem  often  so  unreal?  Why  is 
the  conviction  of  it  a  wavering  one  with  its 
constant  ups  and  downs? 

These  are  questions  that  press  upon  us  from 
the  start  in  every  thorough-going  discussion 
of   the    reality   of    a   spiritual   view    and    of    a 


10      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

spiritual  life.  They  are  there,  before  we  begin 
any  of  our  arguments  for  the  existence  of  God, 
hindering  the  argument  at  every  step;  they  are 
there,  after  all  our  arguments  are  completed, 
sapping  the  strength  of  the  conviction  the 
arguments  are  supposed  to  bring.  Men  every- 
where go  more  or  less  consciously  under  the 
constant  burden  of  the  feeling  that  even  this 
best  hypothesis  has  more  difficulties  than  it 
ought  to  have  to  be  true;  that  especially  such 
a  God  as  the  Christian  view  affirms,  and  as  the 
heart  everywhere  cries  out  for,  must  have  made 
himself  more  unmistakably  manifest,  and  not 
have  permitted  faith  to  be  so  difficult  a  deed 
in  any  case. 

Some  time  ago,  one  of  our  religious  papers1 
furnished  an  illustration  of  this  perennial  ques- 
tion of  the  race  about  the  hidden  God. 

"Two  girls,  as  they  walked  home  one  night 
from  work,  were  engaged  in  earnest  talk.  A 
stranger  who  stood  on  the  sidewalk  near  them 
saw  the  play  of  anxious  feeling  on  their  faces 
as  they  stopped  a  moment  beneath  a  street- 
lamp's  dim  light.  Suddenly  one  was  heard  to 
say  to  the  other,  'Yes,  but  why  has  no  one  ever 
seen  God?' — that  was  all,  just  a  fragment-word 

1  Sunday  School  Times,  April  5,  1902 


THE    MEANING   OF    THE    THEME  II 

throbbing  with  pain  and  regret,  and  they  van- 
ished again  in  the  night. 

"How  like  humanity  that  was !  Like  children, 
they  pause  now  and  then  in  the  darkness  of 
life,  lift  their  weary  faces  to  the  pale  lights 
glaring  along  the  way,  and,  peering  into  baf- 
fled eyes,  cry,  'Why  can  we  not  see  our  God?' 
It  was  Philip's  old  question,  you  remember, 
'Show  us  the  Father,'  and  all  of  us  are  now 
and  then  in  Philip's  class,  for  it  is  large." 

The  incident  is  a  single  modern  echo  of  the 
ancient  plaint  of  Job:  "Behold,  I  go  forward, 
but  he  is  not  there;  and  backward,  but  I  can- 
not perceive  him:  on  the  left  hand,  when  he 
doth  work,  but  I  cannot  behold  him:  he  hideth 
himself  on  the  right  hand,  that  I  cannot  see 
him."  And  we  are  likely  to  return  from  all 
our  scientific  excursions  into  the  world  of  nature 
and  of  history,  to  say  again  with  Job:  "Lo, 
these  are  but  the  outskirts  of  his  ways:  and 
how  small  a  whisper  do  we  hear  of  him  I" 

The  precise  difficulty  felt  in  all  such  cases 
may  be,  perhaps,  thus  formulated:  Though,  by 
hypothesis,  God  is  the  one  realest  of  all  facts 
and  the  most  loving  of  all  beings,  he  does  not 
seem  to  be  thrust  upon  us  as  such  at  all. 

After  all  is  said,  is  this  not  the  real  and  great 
difficulty  for  the  Christian  view?    And  for  the 


12      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

establishment  of  real  conviction,  and  of  joyful 
spiritual  living,  does  not  more  depend  upon 
meeting  effectively  this  everywhere  underlying 
doubt  of  the  soul,  than  upon  either  repeating 
in  new  forms  the  old  arguments,  or  in  elaborat- 
ing new  arguments  for  the  existence  of  God 
and  the  possibility  of  an  ideal  view  of  the 
world?  Do  we  not  need  to  give  this  particular 
aspect  of  our  problem  such  a  careful,  detailed, 
and  comprehensive  consideration  as  it  seldom 
receives?    Just  this  is  our  task. 

Can  something  be  done,  now,  to  meet  this 
constant,  underlying  difficulty  of  the  seeming 
unreality  of  the  spiritual  life,  felt  at  the  start, 
and  felt  after  the  Christian  view  is  admitted  to 
be  the  most  reasonable?  Can  the  ground  be 
cleared  of  misconceptions,  mistaken  prepos- 
sessions, certain  fallacies  of  common  speech 
and  thought,  unreasonable  demands,  failures 
to  remember  essential  conditions  in  our  life 
problems?  Can  something  be  done  toward 
giving  a  really  different  point  of  view,  that 
may  make  the  seeming  unreality  of  the  spiritual 
world  less  a  burden  to  us?  In  a  word,  can  we 
see  the  reasons  for  the  seeming  unreality  of 
the  spiritual  life? 


Ill 

THE  ORDER  OF  THE  DISCUSSION 

Exactly  this  is  the  problem  of  the  first  of 
the  two  large  divisions  of  our  inquiry.  From 
the  discussion  of  the  reasons  for  the  seeming 
unreality,  we  are  then  to  turn,  in  the  second 
division,  in  the  light  of  the  principles  brought 
out  in  the  first  division,  to  a  briefer  considera- 
tion of  the  positive  way  to  a  convincing  sense 
of  reality  in  religious  thought  and  life.  The 
question  is  throughout  both  a  theoretical  one — 
of  the  possible  full  defense  of  the  theistic  view 
of  the  world,  and  a  practical  one — of  the  re- 
ligious life. 

From  the  beginning  it  seems  clear  that  the 
reasons  for  the  seeming  unreality  of  the  spiritual 
life  would  naturally  include  two  classes  of 
causes:  those  causes  which  are  removable  by 
us;  and  those  causes  which  lie  in  the  nature 
of  the  facts  involved,  and  which  while  not 
removable  by  us,  can  be  recognized  and  taken 
into  account.  That  is,  there  are  removable 
causes,  and  causes  not  removable  but  recog- 
nizable. 

On  the  one  hand,  then,  there  is  the  unreality 

13 


14      THE  SEEMING   UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

which  is  not  due  to  the  necessity  of  the  facts, 
but  to  something  removable  in  ourselves — the 
unreality  that  exists  either  because  certain  mis- 
conceptions are  held  which  prevent  our  seeing 
the  problem  aright,  or  because  certain  condi- 
tions are  not  fulfilled,  upon  which  alone  the 
clearer  vision  could  come.  The  removable 
causes,  then,  are  misconceptions  of  the  facts, 
and  failure  to  fulfil  the  natural  conditions  of 
the  spiritual  life. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  the  causes 
which  we  cannot  remove,  but  which  we  can 
recognize:  the  seeming  unreality  which  is  due 
to  the  inevitable  limitations  and  fluctuations  of 
our  finite  natures;  and  the  seeming  unreality 
which  is  needed  for  our  moral  training.  While 
these  causes  cannot  be  removed,  the  clear  recog- 
nition of  them  would  do,  perhaps,  most  of  all 
to  lift  the  burden  of  the  sense  of  the  unreality 
of  the  spiritual  world. 

We  are  to  turn  first,  then,  to  the  removable 
causes 

At  bottom,  both  of  the  removable  causes  of 
the  seeming  unreality  of  the  spiritual  life — 
misconceptions,  and  failure  to  fulfil  needed 
conditions — grow  out  of  the  deeper  failure 
rightly  to  relate  the  spiritual  life  to  the  rest  of 
life,  to  see  both  its  likeness  and  its  difference. 


THE   ORDER   OF   THE    DISCUSSION  1 5 

For,  it  is  to  be  carefully  noted,  a  thing  may 
be  unreal  to  us  either  because  it  seems  to  have 
no  living  connection  with  the  rest  of  our  life, 
or  because  it  seems  to  have  no  special  con- 
tribution to  make  to  life.  Some  will  feel  one 
difficulty  most,  others  the  other;  but  all  of  us 
probably  feel  both  difficulties  in  some  degree. 
So,  if  the  spiritual  life  is  to  have  reality  for 
us,  on  the  one  hand,  it  must  be  seen  to  be  of 
a  piece  with  all  life,  bound  up  with  the  in- 
dubitably real  world;  and  yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  must  have  individuality — its  own 
reason  for  being — in  its  unique  and  valuable 
point  of  view  and  contribution.  That  is,  the 
spiritual  life  must  have  the  reality  of  connec- 
tion with  all  other  reals,  and  the  reality  of 
individuality  in  its  own  specific  contribution 
to  the  meaning  of  life.  It  must  not  be  so 
different  that  it  cannot  be  believed  to  belong 
to  the  same  world,  and  to  the  same  human 
nature,  and  to  the  same  God,  as  the  rest  of 
life;  and  yet  it  must  be  seen  to  be  different 
enough  to  have  a  genuine  and  indispensable 
contribution  of  its  own  to  make. 

The  radical  liberal — if  I  may  so  call  him — - 
feels  most  the  first  difficulty,  and  everywhere 
has  done  most  to  solve  it.  What  Pfleiderer 
calls    the    "abstract    supernatural"    is    to    this 


l6      THE  SEEMING   UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

radical  liberal  a  perpetual  stumbling-block, 
and  he  is  ever  pointing  out  the  connection,  the 
likeness,  and  the  unity  of  things.  The  im- 
manence of  God  is  his  one  great  insistence. 
The  radical  orthodox — as  perhaps  the  other 
temperament  may  be  called — feels  most  the 
other  difficulty,  and  has  done  most  for  its  solu- 
tion. His  great  insistence  is  the  transcendence 
of  God.  The  liberal  has  done  most  to  establish 
the  likeness;  the  orthodox,  the  individuality 
of  religion.  And  yet,  for  a  man  who  is  willing 
to  see  the  whole  problem,  both  difficulties  are 
equally  real;  both  solutions  are  needed;  they 
cannot  be  thought  of  as  antagonistic.  Both 
the  misconceptions  of  the  spiritual  life,  there- 
fore, and  the  failure  to  fulfil  its  natural  con- 
ditions, may  come  from  ignoring  either  the 
likeness  or  the  difference  of  the  spiritual  life. 

The  two  classes  of  misconceptions  of  the 
spiritual  life  which  so  arise  are  particularly 
plain.  Men  stumble  at  the  spiritual  life,  that 
is,  either  because  it  seems  so  unlike  the  rest  of 
their  life,  its  conditions  all  so  different;  or 
because  they  do  not  see  that  it  has  anything 
of  indispensable  value  to  give. 

Sometimes  the  solution  of  the  difficulty  of 
unlikeness  seems  to  have  proved  too  much. 
It  has  made  religion  so  like  all  the  rest  of  life, 


THE   ORDER   OF   THE    DISCUSSION  17 

that  religion  itself  seems  to  have  disappeared 
in  the  process.  Thus  arises  the  frequent  barren- 
ness of  the  liberal  defense  of  religion.  On  the 
other  hand,  one  may  seem  to  make  religion 
so  unique  as  to  make  it  unbelievable,  an  abso- 
lute miracle,  with  no  possible  tie  of  connection 
with  the  world  we  know — an  error  into  which 
the  Ritschlian  seems  sometimes  likely  to  fall. 
We  shall  be  guarded  against  these  opposite 
errors,  only  by  recognizing  frankly  and  fully 
both  needs  from  the  start. 

We  begin,  then,  with  the  misconceptions 
which  come  from  ignoring  the  likeness  of  the 
spiritual  life  to  the  rest  of  life — its  close-knit 
connections  with  the  whole  of  existence. 

If  the  spiritual  life  is  a  reality  at  all,  we 
must  expect  to  find  it  so  closely  connected  with 
the  rest  of  our  life  that  conditions  which  hold 
in  all  the  other  realms  of  our  experience  will 
not  be  without  their  effect  in  the  spiritual 
realm.  We  may  not  safely  forget  or  ignore, 
therefore,  in  the  religious  life,  those  great 
common  conditions  of  all  our  living  which 
are  always  at  work.  Much  of  our  disappoint- 
ment in  spiritual  things  comes  either  from 
quietly  ignoring  circumstances  which  we  con- 
stantly take  into  account  as  matters  of  course 
in  other  spheres  of  life;   or  from  carrying  over 


1 8      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

into  the  religious  life  without  question  certain 
common  fallacies  or  unwarranted  assumptions 
of  ordinary  crude  thinking,  which  are  felt  to 
be  necessarily  unspiritual  in  their  implications. 
Against  both  mistakes,  we  have  to  emphasize 
the  likeness  of  all  the  spheres  of  life:  to  see,  on 
the  one  hand,  that  the  spiritual  life  cannot  be 
set  free  from  the  conditions  involved  in  its 
connection  with  the  rest  of  life;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  the  fundamental  implications 
of  the  other  spheres  of  life  are  not  anti-spirit- 
ual, as  common  and  cruder  views  often  tacitly 
assume. 

And,  first,  we  need  to  take  into  account  the 
effects  of  the  great  common  conditions  of  all 
our  living — bodily  and  psyschical. 


PART  I 

THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  SEEMING 
UNREALITY 


MISCONCEPTIONS 


IV 

IGNORING  BODILY  CONDITIONS 

We  find  ourselves  living  an  apparently  dual 
life,  with  its  bodily  and  psychical  sides.  As 
to  both,  we  have  a  certain  constitution,  the 
nature  and  laws  of  which  we  may  not  wisely 
ignore  anywhere.  We  can  regard  the  consti- 
tution of  our  being  and  its  laws,  if  we  will,  as 
hindrances  to  be  fought  against;  and  the  re- 
ligious life  seems  often  so  to  have  viewed  the 
matter.  But  it  ought  not  to  require  much 
thinking  to  see  that  such  a  course  is  not  only 
suicidal,  but  particularly  for  a  thorough-going 
theistic  view,  is  utterly  self-contradictory;  for 
the  theistic  view  must  recognize  in  the  nature 
of  men  an  expression  of  the  will  of  God  him- 
self. The  religious  life,  peculiarly,  therefore, 
is  driven  to  see  in  the  laws  of  man's  being — 
what  scientific  discovery  and  invention  see  in 
the  laws  of  nature — not  limitations,  but  the 
possibility  of  constantly  extending  power.  V  Let 
us  make  it  unmistakably  clear  to  ourselves, 
then,  that  it  is  not  beneath  the  dignity  of  the 

spiritual  life  thoroughly  to  learn  the  lesson  of 

23 


24      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

modern  science:  that  no  conditions  are  trivial, 
and  that  none  may  be  safely  ignored. 

This  certainly  means,  in  the  first  place,  that 
for  the  present  world,  at  least,  the  spiritual 
life  has  its  bodily  conditions.  It  cannot  blindly 
ignore  them,  without  itself  inviting  into  its  heart 
the  sense  of  unreality.  This  is  to  be  said 
neither  boastingly  nor  cynically.  It  is  to  be 
faced  as  a  simple  fact.  We  have  bodies,  an 
we  cannot  set  ourselves  free  from  them.^'As 
I  have  elsewhere  said,1 

The  long  sad  history  of  asceticism  in  all 
lands  shows  how  real  the  religious  life  has 
felt  this  connection  with  the  body  to  be,  and 
at  the  same  time  how  fiercely  it  has  resented 
it.  Men  have  remained,  in  this  question  of 
asceticism,  quite  too  largely  on  the  mytho- 
logical plane,  without  any  clear  sense  of  a 
real  nature  and  unity  of  things.  The  scientific 
spirit,  which  demands  a  careful  study  of  de- 
tailed connections  and  conditions,  has  had  little 
enough  to  do  with  this  blind,  fierce  struggle; 
and,  in  consequence,  the  ascetic  has  every- 
where, on  the  one  hand,  failed  to  take  any 
sensible  account  of  the  effects  of  ordinary 
bodily  conditions;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
paradoxically  enough,  has  exalted  the  effects 
of  certain  abnormal  bodily  conditions  into 
higher  spiritual  attainments.     These  historical 

1  Rational  Living,  pp.  47-49. 


/* 


t- 


IGNORING    BODILY   CONDITIONS  25 

results  of  religious  asceticism  certainly  cannot 
be  held  to  commend  the  method  of  ignoring 
is— bodily  conditions. VThe  plain  lesson  of  modern 
science  here  would  seem  to  be,  that,  if  the 
spirit  is  ever  to  master  the  body,  it  must  know 
its  laws  and  take  account  of  its  conditions; 
these  are  the  very  instruments  of  its  mastery. 
So,  and  only  so,  has  science  made  nature  serve 
it. 

One  can  quite  understand  the  reluctance  of 
the  spiritual  life  to  admit  the  closeness  of  its 
connection  with  the  physical.  It  seems  itself 
to  be  lowered  thereby.  But  it  gets  no  freedom 
and  power  by  vehemently  denying  the  fact, 
and  ignoring  the  resulting  conditions.  Rather, 
its  superiority  must  be  shown,  its  freedom 
and  power  declared,  as  has  been  implied,  by 
patient  study  of  the  laws  of  this  body  and  of 
its  connection  with  the  spirit,  and  by  steady 
fulfilment  of  the  conditions  by  which  alone 
mastery  can  come.  It  is  a  false  and  abstract 
spiritualism,  therefore,  that  hesitates  clearly 
to  recognize  or  to  affirm  the  bodily  conditions 
of  the  spiritual  life.  Let  us  frankly  admit 
that  much  of  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  moral 
and  spiritual  life  results  from  a  wholly  un- 
necessary and  senseless  disregard  of  bodily 
conditions.  The  emphasis  of  modern  psy- 
chology upon  the  close  connection  of  body  and 
mind,  thus,  compels  the  thoughtful  man  to 
a  study  of  the  bodily  conditions  of  true  living. 

The  man,  thus,  who  means  to  be  saved  from 


26     THE  SEEMING   UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

misconception  of  the  spiritual  life  through  ig- 
noring its  bodily  conditions  must  bear  in  mind, 
for  example,  the  need  of  well  oxygenated  blood, 
and  the  special  need  of  surplus  nervous  energy 
as  a  chief  physical  condition  of  self-control.  He 
will  not  forget  here,  then,  the  inevitable  effect 
of  fatigue  on  attention,  and  consequently  upon 
self-control.  Nor  will  he  forget  the  close 
connection  of  muscular  activity  and  will,  nor 
the  physical  basis  of  habit.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  will  recognize  the  influence  of  the 
mind  over  the  body,  and  especially  the  power 
of  the  will  in  determining  conditions  of  health, 
in  achieving  rest,  in  avoiding  hurry,  and  in 
meeting  the  special  conditions  of  surplus  nerv- 
ous energy.  He  will  remember,  as  well,  the 
physiological  effects  of  faith,  and  the  possible 
great    liberating    force    of    religion    in    setting 

free  the  powers  of  man.    , 

4 


FORGETTING  THE  COMPLEXITY  AND  UNITY 

OF  LIFE 

When  we  turn  to  the  misconceptions  which 
come  from  ignoring  the  psychical  conditions, 
which  are  common  to  the  whole  of  life,  we 
can  perhaps  deal  with  them  most  promptly 
and  comprehensively  by  noting  the  bearing  of 
what  I  have  called  the  four  great  inferences 
from  modern  psychology:  the  complexity  of 
life,  the  unity  of  the  mind,  the  central  im- 
portance of  will  and  action,  and  the  concrete- 
ness  of  the  real.1 

And,  first,  the  spiritual  life  must  suffer  from 
any  ignoring  of  the  complexity  of  life.  It  is 
perhaps  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  growing 
conviction  of  this  complexity  of  life  has  changed 
our  feeling  throughout  concerning  both  reli- 
gion and  theology.  Their  problems  do  not 
seem  to  us  so  simple  as  before,  and  we  are 
inclined,  therefore,  to  be  less  dogmatic,  and 
at  the  same  time  more  true  to  facts.  In  the- 
ology, as  well  as  in  psychology,  there  is  taking 
place   what   Professor   James    has   called   "the 

1  Treated  at  length  in  my  Rational  Living. 

27 


28     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

reinstatement  of  the  vague  and  inarticulate  to 
its  proper  place  in  our  mental  life."  This 
makes  for  truth  at  the  same  time  that  it  dis- 
turbs dogmatists;  and  it  contains,  as  well,  the 
key  to  many  of  our  difficulties  which  really 
come  from  forgetting  this  intricate  complexity 
of  life. 

The  conviction  of  the  complexity  of  life 
brings  home,  too,  to  the  religious  conscious- 
ness a  fresh  sense  of  the  impossibility  of  the 
spirit  of  exclusiveness  in  the  spiritual  life.  It 
sees  with  increasing  clearness  that  there  can  be 
no  separation  of  the  sacred  and  secular;  that  all 
of  life  is  bound  up  together.  Too  often,  in  their 
inquiry  after  the  spiritual  life,  men  seem  to  have 
been  hunting  for  it  as  an  isolated  something,  just 
as  the  psychologists,  as  HofTding  says,  have 
looked  for  the  Ego  "as  something  absolutely 
simple,  which  consequently  might  be  given  in  a 
certain  definite  state,  in  a  certain  definite  sensa- 
tion or  idea."  "Hume,"  he  says,  "cannot  see  the 
trees  for  the  wood."  The  spiritual  life  could  be 
presented  to  us  as  nothing  real  in  that  sense. 
For  that  which  is  an  abstract,  single,  and  iso- 
lated thing,  that  which  is  fundamentally  out 
of  relation  to  all  else,  becomes  thereby  a  cipher, 
non-existent  and  without  meaning.  What  re- 
ality could  it  have? 


FORGETTING  COMPLEXITY  AND   UNITY   OF  LIFE  2Q 

We  shall  therefore  look  for  religion  not 
as  something  apart  from  life,  but  in  the  very 
midst  of  it,  knit  up  with  the  cell  and  with 
sex,  with  all  human  relations  and  employments 
and  tendencies  and  strivings, — inextricably  in- 
volved in  all.  And  we  shall  look  for  its  glory 
not  in  a  majestic  isolation,  but  rather  in  its 
ability  to  permeate  and  dominate  all  life. 
Does  not  a  religion  that  claims  to  possess  a 
water-tight  compartment  of  its  own  thereby 
proclaim  its  own  impotence  and  falsity?  Is 
the  claim  itself  not  of  the  very  essence  of 
hypocrisy? 

From  this  point  of  view,  there  might  be 
real  truth  in  what  has  seemed  to  us  often  the 
purely  pagan  exaltation  of  life-processes,  and 
in  the  modern  psychological  explanations  (like 
those  of  Professor  Leuba  for  example)  of  many 
mystical  experiences,  that  do  not  at  the  same 
time  deny  all  value  to  these  experiences.  As 
Professor  Davenport  puts  it,  "the  human  love- 
passion  and  the  spiritual  love-passion  appear 
to  modern  psychology  to  be  delicately  inter- 
woven, particularly  in  the  case  of  young  peo- 
ple between  fourteen  and  twenty-five."  Per- 
haps we  have  no  stronger  illustration  than  just 
this  of  the  modern  recognition  of  the  com- 
plexity of  life  in  its  bearing  on  religion. 


30     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

If  this  psychological  point  of  view  is  correct, 
it  will  at  once  be  seen  that  it  is  an  essential 
misconception  of  the  facts  to  doubt  the  reality 
of  the  spiritual  life  because  we  do  not  find  it 
as  an  isolated  bit.  We  could  not  wish  so  to 
find  it,  if  we  desired  it  to  be  an  important 
factor  in  life  at  all.  A  current  illustration 
may  be  found  in  this  comment  of  the  Inde- 
pendent upon  a  striking  utterance  of  the  dis- 
tinguished missionary,   Dr.  Timothy  Richard: 

"The  point  of  Dr.  Richard's  argument  is 
this:  That  if  endeavors  after  conversion  are 
meant  merely  to  cover  the  strivings  to  renew 
men's  hearts  devotionally  without  striving  to 
improve  men  materially,  intellectually  and 
nationally,  it  would  seem  that  only  a  small 
part  of  the  kingdom  of  God  makes  headway. 
It  is  a  fact  that  'conversion  in  regard  to  ma- 
terial, intellectual,  social,  national  and  inter- 
national, as  well  as  devotional  aspects,  is  a 
conversion  towards  the  establishment  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth.'  " 

In  the  same  way,  the  spiritual  life  is  certain 
to  suffer  from  ignoring  the  unity  of  the  mind. 
For  this  unity  will  mean,  even  more  clearly 
than  did  the  complexity  of  life,  that  it  will  be 
impossible  for  us  to  separate  religious  experi- 
ence from  the  rest  of  our  living.     It  will  mean, 


FORGETTING  COMPLEXITY  AND    UNITY   OF   LIFE  3 1 

further,  that  there  will  be  plain  intellectual, 
emotional,  and  volitional  conditions1  of  the 
spiritual  life  that  must  be  recognized  and  ful- 
filled. And  just  so  far  as  these  conditions  are 
not  fulfilled,  the  spiritual  life  is  bound  to  suf- 
fer. And  where  this  is  the  case,  one  need  not 
look  further  for  the  solution  of  his  religious 
difficulties. 

1Cf.  Rational  Living,  pp.  in  ff. 


VI 
KNOWLEDGE  NEVER  MERELY  PASSIVE 

In  the  same  way,  no  rational  conception  of 
the  spiritual  life  can  afford  to  forget  the 
modern  psychological  emphasis  upon  the  cen- 
tral importance  of  will  and  action.  This  con- 
viction will  plainly  affect  the  entire  point  of 
view,  and  may  easily  change,  as  we  shall  see, 
what  have  come  to  seem  commonplaces  in 
religious  thinking  and  living.  A  misconcep- 
tion, that  is,  of  the  psychological  facts  here 
must  inevitably  affect  our  spiritual  insight  and 
the  success  of  our  spiritual  living. 

In  particular,  the  psychological  emphasis 
on  the  central  importance  of  will  and  action 
means  that  religious  thinking  must  not  forget 
the  practical  nature  of  all  knowledge  and  be- 
lief. 

Certainly  this  principle  means  that  knowl- 
edge is  never  a  merely  passive  process,  as 
probably  it  is  commonly  conceived.  It  in- 
volves at  every  stage  the  creative  activity  of 
the  mind.  In  the  most  passive  experience  con- 
ceivable, the  mind  itself  has  something  to 
contribute.      A    purely    passive    impression    is 

32 


KNOWLEDGE    NEVER    MERELY    PASSIVE  33 

a  psychological  abstraction,  never  an  actual 
fact.  In  no  case,  whether  in  our  relation  to 
the  world  of  the  senses,  or  in  our  relation  to 
other  minds,  or  in  our  relation  to  God,  can 
there  be  any  literal  transfer  of  thought  or  feel- 
ing. We  get  partial  data  only,  which  we 
complete  and  then  interpret.  In  even  the 
closest  personal  intercourse,  it  is  worth  notic- 
ing, the  words  spoken  are,  after  all,  only  signs 
of  ideas  that  must  be  created  on  both  sides. 
Even  the  receiving  mind  must  actively  create 
the  ideas,  suggested  by  the  words  spoken  by 
the  other,  in  view  of  its  own  entire  experience. 
There  is  no  possible  way,  in  even  the  directest 
knowledge,  of  getting  rid  of  this  interpreta- 
tion of  given  data,  out  of  experience.  The 
conditions  of  religious  knowledge,  therefore, 
are  in  no  way  unique  in  this  respect.  The 
principle  has  its  immediate  bearing  upon  the 
reality  of  prayer,  and  of  inspiration,  and  of 
revelation  from  God.  For  it  requires  that 
there  should  always  be  a  human  interpretive 
element  in  all  these  experiences. 

A  chief  difficulty,  for  example,  in  prayer  is 
no  doubt  found  for  many  in  the  lack  of  a  felt 
presence,  and  the  lack  of  a  definite  response, 
such  as  the  person  feels  that  he  gets  in  his 
relation  to  the  outer  world,  or  to  another 
3 


34      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

person.  As  to  this  difficulty  it  might  be  said 
at  once,  as  Hinton  suggests,  that  all  the  final 
forces,  even  in  external  nature,  are  unseen  and 
not  as  they  seem  to  us.  The  constant  pressure 
of  the  air,  the  motion  of  the  earth,  we  do  not 
feel  at  all.  We  have  no  sensible  knowledge, 
of  any  kind,  of  the  existence  or  nature  of  atoms. 
The  ether  vibrations  are  quite  beyond  the  reach 
of  any  sense. 

But  the  principle  which  we  are  here  con- 
sidering— that  knowledge  is  never  merely  pas- 
sive— contains  a  more  adequate  answer  to  the 
difficulty.  There  is  really  a  very  close  analogy 
between  the  knowledge  of  the  outer  world, 
which  we  gain  through  sensations,  and  the 
knowledge  of  the  spiritual  world  which  comes 
from  the  data  of  our  inner  life.  In  neither 
case  can  it  be  said  that  there  are  immediate 
knowledge  and  revelation.  In  both,  what  we 
call  our  immediate  knowledge  has  been  a  long 
time  building,  and  has  involved  not  only  the 
first  impressions,  but  comparison,  memory,  and 
reasoning.  In  neither  case  is  a  literal  transfer 
of  full-fledged  thought  or  knowledge  possible. 
God's  revelation  of  himself  cannot  be  a  literal 
transfer  of  a  message  as  by  a  written  note;  and 
even  if  there  were  literal  words  spoken  or 
written,    they   would    still    require    interpreta- 


KNOWLEDGE    NEVER    MERELY    PASSIVE  35 

tion,  and  be  capable  of  very  different  meanings, 
as  interpreted  out  of  different  experiences. 

Lotze,  in  a  thoughtful  passage  in  his  Micro- 
cosmus,  brings  out  carefully  this  comparison 
between  our  relation  to  the  world  of  sense  and 
to  the  world  of  spirit:1 

"Every  sensuous  impression  regarded  in 
itself  is  but  a  way  in  which  we  are  affected, 
some  phase  of  our  own  condition;  in  itself 
it  gives  no  knowledge  of  any  matter  of  fact, 
taken  alone  it  constitutes  no  experience.  Here 
again  it  is  only  our  thought  which,  mastering 
the  manifold  revelations  of  sense,  compares 
and  combines  them,  or  interprets  given  com- 
binations, thus  arriving  through  them  at  the 
knowledge  of  some  fact.  We  can  hardly  pic- 
ture to  ourselves  the  workings  of  God  upon 
the  heart  otherwise  than  after  this  pattern;  we 
cannot  imagine  the  recognition  of  any  fact  as 
something  that  can  be  simply  communicated, 
something  that  reaches  the  mind  ready-made 
and  without  any  activity  on  its  part;  we  can 
only  imagine  that  occasion  can  be  given  to 
the  mind  to,  as  it  were,  produce  such  recogni- 
tion by  exercising  this  activity,  and  in  this  it 
is  that  every  appropriation  of  a  truth  must 
consist.     As  sense  in  itself  furnishes  merely  an 

'Vol.  II,  p.   662. 


36     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

impression,  so  also  this  divine  influence  would 
produce  merely  a  feeling,  a  mood,  a  mode  of  af- 
fection ;  what  is  thus  experienced  becomes  a 
revelation  only  through  some  work  of  reflection 
which  analyzes  its  content  and  reduces  it  to  co- 
herence by  clear  notions  that  are  capable  of  being 
combined  with  our  ideas  of  the  real  world." 
That  we  have  these  inner  data,  as  a  sufficient 
and  legitimate  basis  for  our  gradually  develop- 
ing knowledge  of  the  spiritual  world,  it  is 
hardly  open  to  any  thoughtful  observer  of 
the  ways  of  his  own  spirit  to  question.  Doubt- 
less God's  response  in  our  spiritual  life  is  not 
made  without  our  own  active  cooperation;  but 
he  does  answer,  and  we  have  had  that  answer 
in  a  thousand  different  quickenings,  glimpses, 
times  of  conviction,  and  "sober  and  strenuous 
moods".  The  really  needed  guidance  and  co- 
operation of  God  must  be  constant,  rather 
than  here  and  there  by  some  marked  interfer- 
ence; and  his  answer  to  us,  therefore,  in  the 
life  of  prayer  is  not  merely  at  the  time  of  our 
prayer,  or  through  consciously  definite  lead- 
ings. Rather  is  he  always  at  work  with  us; 
and  the  justification  of  our  faith  is,  that  in  the 
long  retrospect  there  is  plain  growth  in  this 
inner  life,  increasing  assurance  of  the  spiritual, 
and  that  our  relation  to  God  is  coming  to  mean 
more  and  more  as  we  go  on. 


VII 

NO  MERELY  THEORETICAL  SOLUTIONS 

All  our  knowing,  then,  once  more  is  neces- 
sarily bound  up  with  the  whole  man  and  with 
the  whole  of  life.  And  this  must  mean  that 
in  religion,  certainly,  no  merely  theoretical 
solution  of  our  problem  is  possible.  Every- 
thing that  has  been  said  in  recent  psychological 
literature  as  to  the  importance  of  action  and 
of  the  practical  interests,  particularly  in  their 
relation  to  the  solution  of  all  our  ultimate  prob- 
lems, shows  this.1  If,  in  body  and  in  mind 
alike,  we  are  made  for  action,  if  we  ourselves 
are  prevailingly  practical,  it  need  not  seem  so 
strange  that  our  solutions  of  ultimate  questions 
must  depend  perhaps  mainly  on  practical  con- 
siderations. And  if  we  are  made  for  action, 
it  is  most  fitting,  moreover,  that  those  convic- 
tions, which  are  to  give  support  to  action, 
should  themselves  be  wrought  out  in  action. 
The  principle  of  the  laboratory  method  would 
be  justified  here  most  of  all.  "In  truth,  when 
one  thinks  deeply  enough  about  it,  he  must 
see,    further,    that   for    the    most    fundamental 

1Cf.  King:    Rational  Living,  pp.  154  ff. 

37 


38      THE  SEEMING   UNREALITY  OF  THE   SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

problems  no  other  than  a  practical  solution 
is  possible  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  There 
can  be  no  mere  theoretical  proof  or  disproof 
of  the  trustworthiness  of  our  faculties,  for  ex- 
ample. One  could  only  use  the  very  faculties 
in  question  in  such  a  proof.  The  only  proof 
possible  is  the  practical  power  to  use  them."1 

To  these  more  fundamental  considerations 
it  may  be  worth  while  to  add  a  number  of 
brief  suggestions  that  naturally  connect  them- 
selves with  this  discussion  of  the  practical 
nature  of  our  knowledge,  and  that  meet  certain 
common  difficulties  of  faith. 

Mathematics  has  been  so  often  extolled  as 
the  ideal  of  reasoning,  and  is  so  commonly 
held  to  be  a  peculiarly  good  training  for  the 
reasoning  powers,  that  it  is  well  worth  insist- 
ing that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  mathematical 
demonstration  possible  in  the  world  of  con- 
crete realities.  Indeed,  the  mathematician,  on 
the  contrary,  is  likely  to  be  a  particularly  poor 
reasoner  in  practical  matters,  if  he  allows  his 
mathematical  point  of  view  to  dominate,  just 
because  his  prevailing  habit  of  thought  is  ab- 
stract. Demonstration  is  possible,  even  in 
mathematics,  only  because  the  mind  itself 
makes  the  concepts  with  which  it  deals;    they 

1King:  Ratiotial  Living,  pp.  165-166. 


NO  MERELY  THEORETICAL  SOLUTIONS  39 

are  abstracts,  capable  of  definition  in  a  finite 
number  of  terms.  In  every  sphere  of  actual 
life,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  shut  up  to  con- 
cretes that  cannot  be  so  defined,  and  therefore 
are  limited  to  probable  reasoning.  To  ask  for 
overwhelming  evidence  in  the  sense  of  demon- 
stration in  the  spiritual  life,  then,  is  to  ask 
for  that  which  never  can  be  given  us  in  any 
realm  of  the  concrete. 

Sometimes  the  demand  for  "overwhelming 
evidence"  in  the  spiritual  life  means  that  one 
wishes  the  conviction  that  comes  from  personal 
experience,  before  fulfilling  the  conditions  upon 
which  alone  that  experience  can  come.  It 
seems  to  be  true  that  we  come  into  all  the 
higher  experiences  of  life  in  one  of  two  ways:1 
either  the  necessary  course  of  our  lives  thrusts 
the  experience  upon  us,  and  though  we  did 
not  choose  it  and  would  not  have  chosen  it,  we 
find  the  actual  experience  meaning  to  us  what 
we  could  not  have  guessed  beforehand,  and 
then  choose  it  for  its  own  sake;  or,  we  have  to 
make  the  venture  with  a  kind  of  desperate 
faith  that  the  experience  will  be  to  us  what 
others  have  found  it,  for  the  highest  things 
everywhere  require  the  complete  commitment, — 
they  give  themselves  only  where  all  is  risked. 

1  Cf.  King:  Personal  and  Ideal  Elements  in  Education,  pp.  151  ff. 


40      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

No  temporizing,  half-hearted  experiment  here 
will  give  results.  The  meaning  of  a  genuinely 
unselfish  love,  for  example,  does  not  yield 
itself  to  any  calculating  experiment.  Either 
one  is  surprised  into  it,  or  he  must  voluntarily 
venture  all  in  complete  self-abandonment,  burn- 
ing all  his  bridges  behind  him.  It  should  be 
no  surprise  to  us,  therefore,  that  in  the  highest 
sphere  of  value,  that  of  religion,  with  its  pre- 
eminently ethical  and  personal  emphasis,  there 
should  be  no  way  of  getting  the  conviction  of 
individual  experience  before  experience.  There 
are,  then,  two  temperaments,  and  two  ways  of 
coming  into  the  great  values  of  life;  but  there 
is  no  way  of  avoiding  the  need  of  experience. 

A  closely  related  suggestion  needs  also  to  be 
heeded  if  we  are  really  to  recognize  how  im- 
possible a  merely  theoretical  solution  is  in 
religion;  though  here,  too,  religion  makes  no 
peculiar  demand.  Throughout  life  we  are 
continually  encountering  experiences  of  which 
we  instinctively  realize  that  it  is  useless  to 
speak,  except  to  those  who  have  had  a  like 
experience.  It  is  useless  to  talk  of  color  to  a 
man  born  blind,  or  of  beauty  to  a  man  who 
never  had  the  living  emotion  of  the  beautiful. 
Our  words  in  all  such  cases  are  only  the  names 
for  experiences;    they  cannot  disclose  the  ex- 


NO  MERELY  THEORETICAL  SOLUTIONS  41 

periences  themselves.  The  very  meaning  of 
the  words  here  is  not  chiefly  a  thought  product 
at  all.  We  have  lived  the  meaning,  and  know 
it  only  so  far  as  we  have  lived  it.  After  all, 
the  one  great  teacher  is  life,  and  our  best  words 
to  another  of  even  the  deepest  in  us  must  fall 
resultless,  until  life  has  brought  to  the  other 
the  experience  out  of  which  the  words  can  be 
interpreted.  We  can  only  bear  witness.  How 
impossible,  then,  is  it  by  any  logical  means  to 
bring  home  the  full  reality  of  the  spiritual 
world,  where  the  conditions  of  the  possible 
experience  are  not  fulfilled!  In  Whitman's 
putting: 

"No    one    can    acquire    for    another — not    one, 
No  one  can  grow  for  another — not  one. 
The   song  is  to  the  singer,   and   comes  back 

most  to  him. 
The  teaching  is  to  the  teacher,  and  comes  back 

most  to  him. 

•  ••*•• 

And  no  man  understands  any  greatness  or 
goodness  but  his  own,  or  the  indica- 
tion of  his  own." 

We  cannot  inherit  the  sense  of  reality  in  the 
spiritual  world.  There  is  no  reality  in  religion 
without   a  living  experience  of  our  own. 


42     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

So,  too,  one  cannot  thoughtfully  face  the 
broad  facts  of  human  experience  without  feel- 
ing how  unreasonable  is  the  seeming  expecta- 
tion, frequently  cherished,  of  ability  to  meet 
all  the  difficulties  of  the  reality  of  the  spiritual 
world  at  once  and  out  of  hand.  The  considera- 
tions just  passed  over  show  how  often  one  must 
wait  for  the  interpreting  power  of  experience. 
Moreover,  even  when  our  conclusions  are  really 
sound,  we  may  be  quite  unable  fully  to  state 
the  reasons.  The  grounds  of  our  faith,  we  have 
seen,  the  whole  trend  of  modern  psychology 
shows  to  be  not  merely  intellectual,  but  inter- 
woven with  a  great  complex  of  human  interests, 
only  slowly  appreciated.  The  truth  is,  prob- 
ably, always  greater  than  our  reasons  for  hold- 
ing it. 

But  even  if  the  problem  be  regarded  in  a 
given  case  as  purely  intellectual,  it  must  still 
be  remembered  that  real  speculative  power  is 
neither  very  common,  nor  is  it  developed  early 
in  life.  It  is  peculiarly  appropriate,  there- 
fore, to  suggest  to  the  young  that  unrest  must 
naturally  be  the  result  of  a  large  reading  of 
speculative  authors  before  there  have  been  ac- 
quired such  mental  development  and  dialectic 
skill  as  will  enable  one  to  overcome  the  pres- 
sure of  the  author  in  hand.     Why  should  one 


NO  MERELY  THEORETICAL  SOLUTIONS  43 

expect,  without  very  wide  and  special  training 
in  these  themes,  at  once  and  out  of  hand  to 
meet  and  settle  all  the  points  a  subtle  mind 
can  raise  in  a  labored  work?  Is  it  sensible  to 
suppose  that  there  is  no  answer  to  our  difficulty, 
because  an  answer  is  not  immediately  sug- 
gested? The  universal  human  interest  in  these 
deeper  questions  involved  in  the  religious  life 
must  of  course  lead  to  much  general  thinking; 
but  there  seems  still  dire  need  of  reminding 
many  that  men  are  not  born  philosophers  and 
born  theologians  any  more  than  born  botanists. 
However  reluctantly,  one  is  simply  compelled 
to  recognize  sometimes  colossal  ignorance  in 
this  sphere  on  the  part  of  men  otherwise  well 
educated.  Let  the  young,  at  least,  be  content 
to  let  the  philosophers  devour  one  another  for 
the  time  being,  while  they  go  on  with  their 
living.  One  may  well  remind  himself,  here, 
of  Augustine  Birrell's  dictum  that  "the  verdict 
to  be  striven  for  is  not  'well-guessed',  but  'well- 
done.7  " 

Again,  many  seem  to  think  it  incumbent  upon 
them,  when  overtaken  by  doubts  in  the  re- 
ligious life,  to  begin  their  inquiry  as  if  the 
questions  were  wholly  new,  to  be  solved  by 
them  from  the  beginning;  although  they  would 
hardly  dream  of  taking  such  a  course  in  other 


44      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

matters.  Is  it  true,  indeed,  that  nothing  has 
been  proved  so  far?  Are  the  history  and  ex- 
perience of  the  centuries  to  count  for  nothing? 
The  man,  for  example,  who  takes  up  Chris- 
tianity to-day,  as  a  new  problem,  to  be  solved 
by  him  as  if  Christ  had  just  come,  it  is  mani- 
fest, deliberately  throws  away  a  very  large 
factor  in  the  solution  of  the  problem. 

It  is  a  perfectly  legitimate  use  of  the  appeal 
to  consequences  which  Newman  Smyth  makes, 
when  he  urges,  "Not  growing  discord,  which 
betrays  a  method  which  is  wrong,  but  grow- 
ing peace,  which  shows  that  the  method  of 
life  is  right,  is  the  world's  experience  of  Chris- 
tianity." This  broader  appeal  to  what  the 
consequences  are  in  the  long  run — like  the 
scientific  verifying  of  an  hypothesis  by  appeal 
to  experience — is  rightly  insisted  upon  in  pres- 
ent-day philosophy,  and  can  be  logically  set 
aside  only  by  one,  who  is  willing  to  deny  the 
fundamental  assumption  of  our  thinking, — 
that  we  are  dealing  with  an  honest  world. 
"For,"  as  Professor  Seth  Pattison  contends,1 
"the  ultima  ratio  of  every  creed,  the  ultima 
ratio  of  truth  itself,  is  that  it  works;  and  no 
greater  condemnation  can  be  passed  upon  a 
doctrine  or  system  than  that,   if  it  were  true, 

1  Man's  Place  in  the  Cosmos,  p.  307. 


NO  MERELY  THEORETICAL  SOLUTIONS  45 

human  life,  as  it  has  been  lived  by  the  best  of 
the  race,  would  cease  to  be  reasonable,  or  rather, 
would  become  a  phenomenon  whose  emergence 
it  was  impossible  to  explain." 

Mr.  Shorthouse,  in  his  Spiritual  Romance  of 
John  Inglesant,  has  made  his  seeker  after  truth 
reach  this  final  conclusion:  "We  find  ourselves 
immersed  in  physical  and  psychological  laws,  in 
accordance  with  which  we  act,  or  from  which  we 
diverge.  Whether  we  are  free  to  act  or  not,  we 
can  at  least  fancy  we  resolve.  Let  us  cheat  our- 
selves, if  it  be  a  cheat,  with  this  fancy,  for  we 
shall  find  that  by  so  doing  we  actually  attain  the 
end  we  seek We  shall  find  man  has  at- 
tained any  position  of  vantage  he  may  occupy 
by  following  the  laws,  which  our  instinct  and 
conscience  tell  us  are  Divine."  The  argu- 
ment is  a  good  one  against  the  confirmed  and 
persistent  doubter.  But  on  what  possible  scheme 
of  thought,  pray,  can  that  freedom,  and  those 
laws,  by  means  of  which  it  is  granted  we  obtain 
whatever  of  value  life  possesses,  be  regarded 
as  "cheats"?  It  is  pure  illusion  to  talk  of 
proofs  at  all,  if  freedom  were  not  so  proved. 
The  healthful  mind  cannot  be  brought  to  be- 
lieve in  any  such  hideous  discord  in  the  nature 
of  things.  Augustine  Birrell  speaks  of  senti- 
mental sceptics  "who,  after  laboring  to  demolish 


46     THE  SEEMING   UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

what  they  call  the  chimera  of  superstition,  fall 
to  weeping  as  they  remember  they  have  now 
no  lies  to  teach  their  children." 

In  any  case,  it  is  particularly  true  in  the 
matter  of  the  religious  life,  that  the  questions 
are  not  new.  Entirely  decisive  and  universally 
convincing  answers,  doubtless,  we  are  still  un- 
able to  give;  but,  even  if  no  reasons  can  be 
suggested  why  our  answers  are  not  more  de- 
cisive, we  may  at  least  recognize  that  the 
difficulties,  also,  are  not  essentially  new.  We 
need  to  learn  the  calm  and  patience  of  history. 
No  generation  has  had  to  face  a  greater  intel- 
lectual revolution  than  our  own;  and  yet  it 
cannot  be  honestly  said  that  the  religious  ques- 
tions and  difficulties  of  our  time  are  greatly 
different  in  their  essence  from  those  of  other 
days.  The  contrary  assumption  is  often  made, 
and  proves  a  real  hindrance;  but  we  have  a 
right  to  urge,  particularly  with  the  young,  that 
the  way  to  a  reasonable  religious  faith  is  not 
more  difficult  now  than  at  any  previous  time, 
but  rather  is  in  all  probability  easier  than  ever, 
as  it  ought  to  be,  if  men  are  profiting  at  all 
by  the  experience  of  the  past. 

Psychology's  rightful  recognition  of  the  prac- 
tical and  of  the  whole  man,  may  remind  us 
again  that,  in  finding  our  way  into  satisfactory 


NO  MERELY  THEORETICAL  SOLUTIONS  47 

religious  living  and  thinking,  there  is  real 
danger  of  over-rating  intellectual  difficulties 
and  particularly  merely  negative  criticism.  A 
single  difficulty  is  sometimes  made  the  end  of 
all  faith.  But  we  may  be  sure  that  no  single 
difficulty,  like  that  of  the  relativity  of  human 
knowledge,  for  example,  easily  phrased  and 
still  more  easily  misapplied,  sums  up  all  of 
philosophy  or  of  life,  or  furnishes  reason  for 
forthwith  setting  aside  all  hitherto  held  as  true. 
The  great  broad  teaching  of  human  life  and 
experience  may  not  be  so  easily  nullified.  We 
need  not  be  in  haste.  There  is  particular  danger 
here  for  those  of  the  preeminently  practical 
temperament,  and  especially  where  strong  de- 
sire or  passion  is  involved.  As  soon  as  the  full 
reason  for  a  hitherto  trusted  moral  or  re- 
ligious principle  is  not  immediately  forthcom- 
ing, the  desire,  held  in  leash  by  the  principle, 
is  given  full  rein.  I  think  it  was  Clerk  Max- 
well, who  wrote  in  a  private  letter,  after 
various  intellectual  excursions  of  this  kind: 
"Old  Chap!  I  have  read  up  many  queer  re- 
ligions; there  is  nothing  like  the  old  thing  after 
all.  I  have  looked  into  most  philosophical 
systems,  and  I  have  seen  that  none  will  work 
without  a  God."  It  is  easy  to  overestimate  the 
difficulties. 


48      THE  SEEMING   UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

An  incidental  suggestion  of  Lotze's  may  well 
be  added  here.  "We  are  accustomed,"  he  says, 
"to  estimate  one  and  the  same  idea  very  dif- 
ferently when  it  comes  before  us  as  a  conjec- 
ture, and  when  it  is  offered  as  the  expression 
of  a  fact."1  We  may  scout  a  view  as  utterly 
preposterous  and  unthinkable  beforehand,  that, 
as  a  proved  fact,  we  later  find  wholly  reason- 
able, and  assimilate  with  entire  equanimity. 
Let  one  think,  for  example,  of  the  fact  of 
alternate  generation  among  some  of  the  lower 
animals,  and  of  the  now  undoubted  partheno- 
genesis of  the  drone  bees.  So,  in  much  of  our 
thinking,  especially  along  the  lines  of  ultimate 
philosophical  and  religious  inquiry,  quite  too 
great  weight  may  be  easily  given  to  a  priori 
objections. 

And  it  needs  also  clearly  to  be  recognized 
that  we  can  nowhere  rest  in  merely  negative 
criticism.  A  quite  unreasonable  importance, 
it  is  certain,  has  been  accorded  in  theistic  argu- 
ment to  this  kind  of  criticism.  What  Professor 
Bowne  says  so  vigorously  of  philosophical  scep- 
ticism holds  of  all  merely  negative  criticism: 
"The  sceptic  acquires  importance,  not  through 
the  doubts  he  utters,  but  through  those  which 
he    rationally    justifies.      The    judicial    critic, 

1  Microcosmus,  Vol.  II,  p.  140. 


NO  MERELY  THEORETICAL  SOLUTIONS  49 

therefore,  must  compel  the  sceptic  to  take  his 
place  along  with  other  theorists,  and  give  rea- 
sons for  the  unfaith  that  is  in  him.  Until  he 
does  this,  his  position  is  arbitrary,  capricious, 
and  irrational.  Strangely  enough,  this  manifest 
dictate  of  logic  has  often  been  overlooked  in 
the  history  of  speculation;  and  dogmatic  denial, 
especially  if  it  be  of  some  important  practical 
interest,  has  been  judged  to  have  high  specula- 
tive significance.  The  ease  with  which  good 
people  have  been  stampeded  by  unsupported 
denial  is  one  of  the  humorous  features  of  the 
history  of  philosophy."1  The  serious  thinker, 
says  Seth  Pattison,  "will  always  repeat  the 
words  of  Kant,  that  in  itself  doubt  is  not  a 
permanent  resting  place  for  human  reason.  Its 
justification  is  relative,  and  its  function  transi- 
tional."2 

Once  more,  in  considering  the  psychological 
conditions  of  the  sense  of  reality  in  the  spiritual 
life,  we  may  not  forget  the  natural  results  that 
come  from  a  long  ignoring  of  facts.  Here,  too, 
the  religious  life  is  not  at  all  peculiar.  The  law 
is  one  common  to  all  the  spheres  of  our  living. 
Our  entire  consciousness  is  characterized,  the 
psychologists   tell   us,   by   a   constant   selective 

1  Theory  of  Thought  and  Knowledge,  p.  269. 
"Encyclopaedia  Britannica.     Article,  Scepticism. 

4 


50      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

activity.  To  certain  elements  in  our  environ- 
ment we  attend;  certain  others  we  persistently 
ignore.  These  ignored  elements  practically 
drop  out  of  our  life;  they  have  for  us  no  real 
existence.  For  all  practical  purposes,  they  have 
ceased  to  be.  So  too,  no  doubt,  the  seeming 
unreality  of  the  spiritual  world  in  the  case  of 
many  is  due,  in  no  small  degree,  to  the  long 
ignoring  of  the  facts  of  the  spiritual  world 
in  their  previous  lives  and  habits  of  thought. 
"We  hear  much,"  writes  Professor  Peabody, 
"of  the  reasons  which  lead  men  to  abandon 
prayer,  but  in  most  such  instances  the  loss  of 
the  prayer  habit  does  not  happen  because  of 
profound  philosophizing  or  serious  conviction, 
but  through  sheer  inertia.  There  are  so  many 
other  things  to  do,  that,  as  a  young  man  once 
said,  'One  does  not  get  around  to  his  prayers!'  m 
The  fact  of  the  existence  of  God,  as  he  is 
revealed  to  us  in  Christ,  is  no  barren  truth. 
The  rational  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  it 
will  bear  on  every  detail  of  life.  But  here  is 
a  man,  perhaps,  (I  am  very  far  from  believing 
that  this  is  a  universal  explanation)  into  whose 
life  for  years  no  conscious  recognition  of  God 
and  the  spiritual  life  has  come;  who  has  acted 
precisely  as  if  they  were  not;    who  has  thus 

1  Mornings  in  the  College  Chapel.     Second  Series,  p.  9. 


NO  MERELY  THEORETICAL  SOLUTIONS  5 1 

virtually  denied  their  existence  in  every  act; 
whose  thoughts,  plans,  purposes,  have  been  all 
apart  from  God;  who  has  settled  habits  of 
thought  and  life,  that  are  logically  consistent 
only  with  denial  of  the  existence  of  God  and 
a  spiritual  life.  Will  those  habits  have  no 
influence  on  his  spiritual  insight?  Is  he  to 
come  now,  at  one  bound,  into  the  clear  and 
simple  vision  of  God  and  divine  truth,  which 
may  have  belonged  to  his  childhood?  And 
shall  he  refuse  to  have  patience  to  take  the 
toilsome  way  back  to  those  early  convictions 
from  which  his  lack  of  earnestness,  his  care- 
lessness, his  indifference,  his  neglect,  his  world- 
liness,  and  his  sin  have  separated  him?  Verily, 
I  sometimes  think,  it  were  a  strange  thing,  if 
the  spiritual  life  were  not  obscure  to  many  of 
us.  If  the  voice  within  us  were  not  indeed 
divine,  long  since  would  it  have  been  smothered 
under  the  heaped  up  rubbish  of  the  years. 


VIII 
THE  PRACTICAL  NATURE  OF  ALL  BELIEF 

But  the  psychological  emphasis  upon  the 
influence  of  the  practical  interests  in  all  con- 
sciousness, and  upon  the  whole  concrete  life  of 
the  whole  man,  not  only  means — as  we  have 
been  seeing — that  in  the  knowledge  of  the 
spiritual  we  may  not  ignore  these  conditions  of 
all  knowledge,  but  also  particularly  means  that 
we  are  not  to  forget  the  practical  nature  of  all 
belief. 

That  I  may  not  simply  repeat  a  line  of 
thought  which  I  have  elsewhere  given1  let  me 
substitute  bodily  Professor  Bowne's  very  clear 
and  suggestive  statement  upon  this  point:  "The 
sum  is  this:  The  mind  is  not  a  disinterested 
logic  machine,  but  a  living  organism,  with 
manifold  interests  and  tendencies.  These  out- 
line its  development,  and  furnish  the  driving 
power.  The  implicit  aim  in  mental  develop- 
ment is  to  recognize  these  interests,  and  make 
room  for  them,  so  that  each  shall  have  its 
proper  field  and  object.     In  this  way  a  series 

1  Cf.  Theology  and  the  Social  Consciousness,  pp.  78-81.  Rational 
Living,  pp.  161  ff. 

52 


THE   PRACTICAL   NATURE  OF   ALL  BELIEF  53 

of  ideals  arise  in  our  mental  life.  As  cognitive, 
we  assume  that  the  universe  is  rational.  Many 
of  its  elements  are  opaque,  and  utterly  unman- 
ageable by  us  at  present,  but  we  assume  spon- 
taneously and  unconsciously  that  at  the  center 
all  is  order,  and  that  there  all  is  crystalline 
and  transparent  to  intelligence.  Thus  there 
arises  in  our  thought  the  conception  of  a 
system  in  which  all  is  light,  a  system  whose 
foundations  are  laid  in  harmony,  and  whose 
structure  is  rational  law,  a  system  every  part 
of  which  is  produced  and  maintained  and 
illumined  by  the  majestic  and  eternal  Reason. 
But  this  is  only  a  cognitive  ideal,  to  which  ex- 
perience yields  but  little  support.  But  we 
hold  fast  the  ideal  and  set  aside  the  facts  which 
make  against  it  as  something  not  yet  com- 
prehended." 

"But  we  are  moral  beings  also,  and  our 
moral  interests  must  be  recognized.  Hence 
arises  a  moral  ideal,  which  we  join  to  the 
cognitive.  The  universe  must  be  not  only 
rational,  but  righteous  at  its  root.  Here  too 
we  set  aside  the  facts  which  make  against  our 
faith  as  something  not  yet  understood.  This 
is  especially  the  case  in  dealing  with  the  prob- 
lem of  evil.  Here  we  are  never  content  with 
finding  a  cause  for  the  good  and  evil  in  ex- 


54      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

perience;  we  insist  upon  an  explanation  which 
shall  save  the  assumed  goodness  at  the  heart 
of  things." 

.  "Finally,  we  are  religious,  and  our  entire 
nature  works  together  to  construct  the  religious 
ideal.  The  intellect  brings  its  ideal;  and  the 
conscience  brings  its  ideal;  and  the  affections 
bring  their  ideal;  and  these,  together  with 
whatever  other  thought  of  perfection  we  may 
have,  are  united  into  the  thought  of  the  one  Per- 
fect Being,  the  ideal  of  ideals,  the  supreme  and 
complete,  to  whom  heart,  will,  conscience,  and 
intellect  alike  may  come  and  say,  (Thy  Kingdom 
come;  thy  will  be  done.'  Here,  as  in  the  pre- 
vious cases,  we  do  not  ignore  the  facts  which 
make  against  the  view,  but  we  set  them  aside 
as  things  to  be  explained,  but  which  must  not 
in  any  way  be  allowed  to  weaken  our  faith." 
"All  of  these  ideals  are,  primarily,  alike 
subjective.  They  are  produced,  indeed,  under 
the  stress  of  experience,  but  they  are  not  tran- 
scripts of  any  possible  experience.  That  trans- 
parent universe  of  the  reason  is  as  purely  a 
mental  product  as  that  righteous  universe  of 
the  conscience,  or  as  the  supreme  perfection 
of  religion.  In  each  of  these  cases  the  mind 
appears  with  its  subjective  ideals,  and  demands 
that  reality  shall  recognize  them;    and  in  all 


THE   PRACTICAL   NATURE  OF   ALL  BELIEF  55 

alike  reality  recognizes  them  only  imperfectly. 
To  some  extent  the  universe  is  intelligible.  To 
some  extent  the  power  not  ourselves  makes  for 
righteousness.  To  some  extent  God  is  revealed. 
But  in  all  these  cases  a  purely  logical  and  ob- 
jective contemplation  of  the  known  facts  would 
leave  us  in  great  uncertainty.  The  assured  con- 
viction we  have  rests  upon  no  logical  deduction 
from  experience,  but  upon  the  optimistic  as- 
sumption that  the  mind  has  a  right  to  itself, 
and  is  at  home  in  the  universe.  The  mind  will 
not  consent  to  abandon  its  nature  and  resign 
itself  to  utter  mental  and  moral  confusion.  This 
is,  to  be  sure,  an  act  of  pure  faith,  but  it  is  an 
act  upon  which  our  entire  mental  life  depends. 
A  purely  speculative  knowledge  of  reality, 
which  shall  be  strictly  deductive  and  free  from 
assumption,  is  impossible."1 

The  spiritual  life — the  religious  view — then, 
let  it  be  clearly  seen,  makes  here  no  peculiar 
demand.  It  stands  side  by  side  with  other 
ideals,  having  a  like  original  justification.  That 
it  must  take  account  of  practical  and  ideal 
interests  is  in  no  way  peculiar  to  it;  but  of 
these  practical  and  ideal  interests  it  must  take 
account.  Not  to  do  so,  is  to  end  in  hopeless 
confusion,  not  in  greater  clearness. 

1  Philosophy  of  Theism,  pp.   19-22. 


IX 

SOME  COMMON  LOGICAL  FALLACIES 

This  practical  nature  of  all  belief  itself  in- 
dicates that,  for  the  sake  of  the  spiritual  life 
itself,  a  protest  is  constantly  needed  in  the 
interests  of  the  whole  concrete  reality  and  of 
the  whole  man.  In  the  last  analysis,  perhaps 
the  greatest  danger  that  can  beset  a  man's 
spiritual  life  and  thought  is  to  misconceive 
both  as  having  to  do  only  with  some  fraction 
of  a  man's  being  or  living.  As  to  our  religious 
thinking,  this  means  that  we  are  to  avoid  the 
mistakes  which  come  from  forgetting  the  in- 
fluence of  certain  common  logical  fallacies,  and 
the  mistake  of  failing  to  set  aside  certain 
traditional  objections,  which  are  supposed  to 
put  religious  faith  and  life  at  peculiar  disad- 
vantage. 

And,  first,  let  us  be  sure  that  the  spiritual 
life  is  guarded  from  the  influence  of  certain 
logical  fallacies  which,  while  very  common, 
are  none  the  less  unwarranted  and  dangerous. 
Nowhere  more  than  in  our  ultimate  thinking 
upon  spiritual  themes  do  we  need  to  be  sure  of 
the  soundness  of  our  reasoning.    Two  of  these 

56 


SOME    COMMON    LOGICAL    FALLACIES  57 

common  fallacies  have  been  already  implied 
in  the  emphasis  upon  the  practical  nature  of 
all  knowledge  and  belief,  and  may  be  merely 
mentioned  in  this  summary  view  of  such  logical 
mistakes,  namely:  the  two  great  and  far  reach- 
ing mistakes  of  ignoring  all  that  cannot  be 
precisely  formulated,  and  so  yielding  to  the 
constant  temptation  to  cut  short  the  facts  to 
suit  our  theories;  and,  particularly,  of  making 
the  intellectual  the  sole  standard  of  reality,  and 
so  practically  identifying  the  logical  and  the 
metaphysical.  The  history  of  philosophy  and 
the  history  of  theology  teem  with  examples  of 
both  mistakes,  some  of  which  have  been  already 
noted. 

Besides  these,  three  other  common  fallacies 
deserve  attention:  those  of  being  dominated 
by  a  word,  by  an  analogy,  and  by  what  is 
imageable.  In  all  these  cases  the  fundamental 
difficulty  is  that  the  word  or  the  analogy  or 
the  image  is  not  really  thought  through. 

One  would  hardly  believe,  were  the  evidence 
not  forced  upon  him,  the  extent  to  which  the 
thought  of  even  professional  thinkers  has  been 
dominated  by  words.  The  only  deliverance 
from  such  domination  is  the  persistent  deter- 
mination to  use  no  words  without  having  some 
clear  corresponding  thought.     Domination  by 


58     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

a  word  whose  implications  are  never  made 
really  clear,  it  has  been  often  noted,  is  seen  in 
the  constant  use,  by  Locke  and  his  followers, 
of  the  word  "impression."  No  doubt  an  in- 
adequate analogy  is  also  strongly  at  work  here. 
Taken  together,  the  domination  has  been  so 
real,  that  "the  tang  of  Locke's  cask,"  as  some 
one  has  expressed  it,  is  to  be  recognized  in  very 
much  of  English  thought  down  to  the  present. 
Domination  by  a  word  is  particularly  easy, 
when  the  word  has  a  double  meaning,  or  seems 
capable,  at  least,  of  looking  in  two  directions 
at  once.  Thus,  many  have  hidden  from  them- 
selves the  real  difficulties  of  their  conception 
by  the  choice  of  the  word  "impulse";  which 
has  both  a  recognized  physical  and  psychical 
meaning,  and  so  seems  admirably  adapted  to 
serve  as  an  explanatory  principle,  that  shall  be 
neither  a  mechanical  force  nor  a  conscious 
mind.  These  people  seem  never  to  have  com- 
pelled themselves  to  face  the  question,  whether 
they  could  really  think  any  tertium  quid,  cor- 
responding to  the  ambiguity  of  the  word.  There 
has  been  a  similar  playing  with  the  word  "ap- 
pearance," the  word  "thought,"  and  the  word 
"force."  And — not  to  extend  enumeration  of 
examples — it  particularly  concerns  the  thinker 
on  religious  themes  to  notice,  that  one  may  be 


SOME    COMMON    LOGICAL    FALLACIES  59 

successfully  challenged  to  give  any  clear  mean- 
ing to  the  term  "impersonal  spirit,"  and  to 
similar  designations,  that  have  nowhere  figured 
more  largely  than  in  anti-theistic  discussions. 
We  are  not  to  be  bullied  by  a  word,  however 
sonorous  or  often  repeated.  We  may  and  we 
must  demand,  if  we  have  any  desire  really  to 
reach  the  truth,  that  every  term  have  a  clear 
corresponding  thought.  It  is  not  vain  to  insist 
upon  the  point.  Over  and  over  again  in  the 
history  of  thought,  great  interests  have  been 
sacrificed  to  a  word. 

The  extent  to  which  men  are  satisfied,  in  their 
search  for  an  explanation,  by  mere  names,  is 
another  almost  humorous  illustration  of  this 
domination  by  words.  Few  seem  to  have  made 
it  clear  to  themselves,  for  example,  that  naming 
a  comparatively  unknown  force  is  no  explana- 
tion of  it,  or  that  a  "law"  of  nature  is  no  ex- 
planation of  the  why  and  wherefore  of  the 
phenomena  whose  behavior  the  law  only  formu- 
lates. 

Domination  by  a  striking  analogy  is  still  more 
common  and  more  dangerous.  It  is  more  dan- 
gerous because  the  analogy  may  be  supposed 
to  be  partly  applicable.  The  mind  then  accepts 
it  as  wholly  adequate,  instead  of  insisting  on 
a  clear  recognition  of  the  precise  limitations 


60     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

of  the  analogy.  It  then  substitutes  for  real 
thinking  upon  the  subject  in  hand,  the  much 
easier  process  of  drawing  out  the  analogy.  It 
may  even  congratulate  itself  upon  some  peculi- 
arly deep  thinking,  when  it  has  abused  its 
analogy,  in  making  it  "go  on  all  fours."  One 
can  hardly  doubt,  for  example,  that  theology 
has  often  so  abused  the  analogy  of  human  law 
and  government.  And  it  is  worth  serious 
thought  by  us  all,  just  now,  whether  under  the 
stimulus  of  the  idea  of  evolution,  with  its  mani- 
fold applications,  we  are  not  all  in  danger 
of  unthinking  domination  by  the  biological 
analogy.  Let  us  say  frankly,  that  much  of  this 
biological  thinking  on  spiritual  themes  is  simply 
not  thinking  at  all,  but  just  deluding  ourselves 
with  a  half-thought  analogy.  And  let  us  recall 
Lotze's  protest — when  the  world  was  once  be- 
fore going  wild  over  a  precisely  similar  idea — 
against  the  term  organic,  "for  which,"  he  says, 
"a  long  defense  will  have  to  be  made  if  at  the 
last  day  account  has  to  be  given  for  every  idle 
word."1 

Once  more,  we  are  peculiarly  liable  to  de- 
lusion, when  a  matter  can  be  in  some  way  pre- 
sented to  us  in  an  image,  although  we  may  not 
be  able  truly  to  think  it  at  all.    The  clearness 

1    Microcosmus,  Vol.  II,  p.  183. 


SOME   COMMON    LOGICAL   FALLACIES  6 1 

and  apparent  obviousness  of  the  image  of  an 
actual  contact  or  impact  of  two  bodies,  for  ex- 
ample, is  felt,  probably,  by  most  to  solve  forth- 
with the  whole  problem  of  the  possibility  of 
reciprocal  action;  although,  in  truth,  it  throws 
not  a  particle  of  light  upon  the  difficult  ques- 
tion of  how  we  are  really  to  think  the  reciprocal 
action  as  taking  place.  And  so  in  countless 
problems,  the  mere  imaging  power  is  made 
to  take  the  place  of  thinking;  and  it  does  it  so 
effectively,  that  often  the  really  serious  difficul- 
ties are  not  even  raised.  Almost  all  the  force 
of  much  anti-theistic  argument  lies  in  this 
shallow  appeal  to  the  power  of  sense-imagery. 
The  argument  seems  to  get  on  swimmingly 
because  it  moves  on  a  crude  sense  plane,  and 
never  faces  the  real  difficulties,  which  require 
a  final  theistic  view  for  their  solution.  The  dif- 
ficult problem  of  interaction,  already  referred 
to,  is  a  good  example  of  such  ignored  difficulties. 
So,  too,  by  imaging  laws  to  themselves  as  some 
kind  of  real  existences,  men  seem  to  be  able  to 
accomplish  much  without  needing  to  assume 
God,  and  escape  many  difficult  questions;  but 
the  process  can  hardly  be  called  thinking.  Such 
theorists  tell  us  that,  grant  them  matter,  force, 
and  laws,  they  will  easily  show  how  the  cosmos 
has   arisen   from   chaos.    The    appeal   here   is 


62     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

almost  wholly  to  the  imaging  power,  and — to 
mention  but  a  single  difficulty — the  view  quite 
fails  to  make  clear  how  that  in  which  laws 
already  rule  can  be  in  any  sense  a  "chaos."  It 
is  to  be  regretted  that  the  philosophizing  of 
men  whose  training  has  been  wholly  in  natural 
science,  has  been  so  largely  on  this  plane  of 
simple  appeal  to  the  sense  imagination.  Per- 
haps no  one  of  late  has  shown  more  convincingly 
the  weakness  of  this  kind  of  reasoning  than 
Ward,  in  his  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism. 


X 

SOME  TRADITIONAL  OBJECTIONS 

Besides  the  influence  of  these  common  fal- 
lacies, religious  thinking  and  living  are  likely 
to  be  hindered  by  failing  to  set  aside  certain 
traditional  objections,  that  are  supposed  to  put 
religious  life  and  thought  at  peculiar  disad- 
vantage. 

Some  of  these  have  been  already  implied, 
and  need  only  be  mentioned  here :  like  the  objec- 
tions that  come  from  an  abstract  intellectual- 
ism,  from  a  crude  sensationalism,  and  from  an 
impossible  hypostasizingof  laws,  and,  in  general, 
from  a  quite  unwarrantable  exaltation  of  the 
mathematico-mechanical  view  of  the  world. 
These  are,  in  fact,  simply  inherited  bugbears. 
The  truth  is,  as  it  may  be  hoped  we  are  more  and 
more  coming  to  see,  that  all  these  views,  from 
which  objection  arises,  are  themselves  so  in- 
volved in  difficulties  and  self-contradictions  that, 
when  an  attempt  is  made  clearly  to  think  them 
through,  they  are  driven  to  abandon  their  posi- 
tion of  self-sufficiency  and  to  admit  that  they 
themselves  require  an  ideal  view  to  complete 
them.    The  universal  abandonment  of  material- 

63 


64     THE  SEEMING   UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

ism  is  one  interesting  illustration  of  this  trend. 

Besides  these  objections,  already  briefly  con- 
sidered, which  arise  more  from  the  point  of 
view  of  natural  science,  there  are  other  objec- 
tions inherited  from  the  philosophical  point  of 
view,  which  are  often  supposed  to  put  the  re- 
ligious life  at  peculiar  disadvantage.  With- 
out going  into  elaborate  argument  upon  any 
one  of  these  points,  we  can  perhaps  see  that 
none  of  them  have  any  such  decisive  weight 
against  the  religious  life  as  has  been  supposed. 

And,  first,  we  ought  carefully  to  observe  that 
there  is  absolutely  no  ground  for  the  very  com- 
mon tacit  assumption,  that  the  theistic  view  is 
in  any  peculiar  way  bound  up  with  all  the  dif- 
ficulties of  the  problems  of  the  theory  of  knowl- 
edge and  of  metaphysics.  It  is  rather  creditable 
than  otherwise  to  theistic  thinking,  that  this 
impression  has  come  to  prevail;  for  it  shows, 
at  least,  that  theistic  thinkers  generally  have 
tried  to  be  really  thorough-going  in  their  in- 
quiries, and  to  shirk  no  problems,  however 
difficult,  in  the  attempt  to  reach  a  genuinely 
unified  view  of  the  world.  And  yet,  the  solving 
of  all  the  difficult  problems  of  epistemology  and 
metaphysics  is,  in  truth,  no  responsibility  be- 
longing peculiarly  to  religion.  It  might  be 
justly  urged   that  the  very  objects   of  science 


SOME   TRADITIONAL    OBJECTIONS  65 

indicate  that  it,  rather  than  religion,  should  be 
here  specially  concerned.  The  problems  are 
difficult,  but  the  difficulties  are  philosophical, 
and  they  exist  for  all  thinkers  alike,  and  are 
not  only  no  more  difficult  for  a  theistic  view 
than  for  any  other,  but  seem  rather  to  require 
some  kind  of  theistic  view  for  their  solution. 
In  any  case,  epistemological  and  metaphysical 
difficulties  are  not  at  all  peculiarly  religious 
difficulties. 

So,  too,  the  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of 
human  knowledge  has  been  long  supposed  to 
make  peculiar  difficulties  for  religion.  The 
theory  affirms  that  all  human  knowledge  is  rela- 
tive; we  cannot  reach  absolute  truth,  but  only 
what  is  true  for  us,  and  this  may  greatly  differ 
from  the  absolute  truth.  All  our  conceptions 
of  God  must  be  after  the  constitution  of  our 
own  minds — "anthropomorphic" — it  is  said, 
and  therefore  untrustworthy.  The  Infinite  God 
must  then  be  for  us  essentially  unknowable. 
The  sweep  of  the  objection  is  to  be  noted.  It 
makes  all  inquiry  useless.  The  inference  from 
the  theory  is  supposed  to  be  that  every  evidence 
of  divine  truths  may  be  set  aside,  because  how- 
ever it  may  seem  to  us,  since  our  knowledge 
is  merely  relative,  we  cannot  have  attained  any- 
thing of  value  in  our  inquiry — no  real  truth. 
5 


66      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

As  to  the  inference  from  the  theory,  a  few 
things  may  be  said. 

The  theory  states  no  new  truth.  When  we 
say  that  human  knowledge  is  relative,  we  only 
affirm  what  most  of  us  learned  long  since, 
that  human  knowledge  is  human  knowledge, 
not  angelic  or  divine,  and  has  consequently 
human  limitations — a  doctrine  quite  as  old  as 
Job.  We  need  not  then  be  greatly  disconcerted, 
or  driven  off  the  field  by  large  words,  "anthro- 
pomorphic" or  otherwise. 

The  inference  drawn  from  the  theory  really 
denies  the  trustworthiness  of  our  reason.  We 
suppose  that  reason  has  given  us  some  real 
truths  in  the  religious  sphere,  and  we  are  told, 
"Not  so;  they  cannot  be  relied  on,  for  your 
thought  is  relative."  This  makes  all  science 
equally  impossible.  The  first  induction  of 
science  goes  upon  the  assumption  of  the  truth 
of  our  instincts,  upon  the  principle  as  expressed 
by  a  clear  thinker,1  that  "the  world  within  us, 
and  the  world  without  us  are  parts  of  the  same 
whole,  and  thus  must  be  related  to  one  another. 
They  must  be  at  heart  the  same.  Thus  by  the 
same  principle  which  gives  us  authority  to 
make  the  slightest  generalization  which  goes 
beyond  the  enumerated  facts,  we  are  authorized 

1  C.  C.  Everett:    The  Science  of  Thought,  p.  375. 


SOME   TRADITIONAL    OBJECTIONS  67 

to  assume  that  the  necessary  forms  of  our  thought 
have  some  relation  definite  and  real  to  the  forms 
of  existence  outside  of  us." 

Upon  this  point  Professor  Simon  has  these 
forcible  words:1  "Convince  man  that  his  think- 
ing must  be  untrue  because  it  is  his,  and  thinking 
will  be  paralyzed;  but  surely  that  which  para- 
lyzes thought  cannot  be  true  for  thought.  Be- 
sides I  would  reply  in  the  language  of  Scripture, 
'God  created  man  in  his  own  image;  in  the 
image  of  God  created  he  him' — words  which  the 
German  philosopher  Jacobi  aptly  applied  to  this 
subject  when  he  said,  'Man  anthropomorphizes 
in  thinking  God,  because  God  theomorphized 
in  creating  man.'  " 

It  is  one  thing  to  say  that  our  knowledge  is 
finite,  partial,  and  quite  another  to  affirm  that 
it  is  therefore  no  true  knowledge.  This  illus- 
tration has  been  used:  "Could  the  inanimate 
worlds  conceive  of  God,  from  their  lower  de- 
gree of  relations,  they  would  conceive  of  him 
as  the  infinite  force.  This  conception  would 
be  partial,  yet  true  as  far  as  it  went.  No  higher 
conception  could  leave  out  that  of  the  infinite 
force.  So  the  plant  would,  and  rightly,  conceive 
of  God  as  the  infinite  life.  That  conception 
would  be  true,  though  partial.    The  spirit  con- 

1  Bibliotlieca  Sacra,  January  '87,  p.  4. 


68     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

ceives  of  him  as  the  infinite  spirit.  This  is 
still  true,  but  still  partial." 

While  distinctly  less  terrifying  than  it  was, 
this  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of  knowledge  still 
seems  to  many  the  sum  of  wisdom;  and  the 
current  naturalism  makes  much  of  it,  in  one 
form  or  another.  It  is  the  very  heart  of  Ward's 
able  discussion  of  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism, 
to  show  that  this  strange  alliance  of  naturalism 
and  agnosticism  is  really  fatal  to  naturalism; 
that  really  to  think  through  the  implication  of 
such  common  scientific  terms  as  "phenomena" 
and  "law"  and  "method"  is  to  see  that  science 
itself  cannot  admit,  without  self-destruction, 
such  a  complete  and  final  relativity  in  human 
knowledge  as  agnosticism  asserts.  In  other 
words,  the  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of  human 
knowledge  is  terrifying,  not  because  it  is  a 
peculiarly  deep  probing  of  the  problem  of  the 
theory  of  knowledge,  but  just  because  it  does 
not  go  to  the  bottom.  It  loses  all  its  terrors 
as  a  peculiar  difficulty  for  ideal  views  as  soon 
as  the  problem  of  knowing  is  vigorously  grap- 
pled. 

Professor  Ward's  own  way  of  getting  at  the 
matter  may  be  seen  in  a  condensed  statement 
from  his  first  chapter.  He  has  summed  up  the 
common  naturalistic  position  in  two  statements. 


SOME   TRADITIONAL    OBJECTIONS  69 

"These  two  statements,"  he  goes  on  to  say, 
"amount  to  saying,  first,  that  there  is  no  knowl- 
edge save  scientific  knowledge,  or  knowledge 
of  phenomena  and  of  their  relations,  and 
secondly,  that  this  knowledge  is  non-theistic. 
It  is  worth  our  while  to  note  that  in  a  sense 
both  these  propositions  are  true,  and  that  is  the 
sense  in  which  science  in  its  every-day  work 
is  concerned  with  them.  But  again  there  is  a 
sense  in  which,  taken  together,  these  proposi- 
tions are  not  true,  but  this  is  a  sense  that  will 
only  present  itself  to  the  critic  of  knowledge 
reflecting  upon  knowledge  as  a  whole.  Thus 
it  is  true  that  science  has  no  need,  and  indeed, 
can  make  no  use,  in  any  particular  instance, 
of  the  theistic  hypothesis.  That  hypothesis  is 
specially  applicable  to  nothing  just  because  it 
claims  to  be  equally  applicable  to  everything. 
Recourse  to  it  would  involve  just  that  discon- 
tinuity which  it  is  the  cardinal  rule  of  scientific 
method  to  avoid.  But,  because  reference  to 
the  Deity  will  not  serve  for  a  physical  explana- 
tion in  physics  or  a  chemical  explanation  in 
chemistry,  it  does  not  therefore  follow  that  the 
sum  total  of  scientific  knowledge  is  equally 
intelligible  whether  we  accept  the  theistic  hypo- 
thesis or  not.  Again,  it  is  true  that  every  item 
of  scientific  knowledge  is  concerned  with  some 


70     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

definite  relation  of  definite  phenomena  and 
with  nothing  else.  But,  for  all  that,  the  syste- 
matic organization  of  such  items  may  quite 
well  yield  further  knowledge  which  transcends 
the  special  relations  of  definite  phenomena.  In 
fact,  so  surely  as  science  collectively  is  more 
than  a  mere  aggregate  of  items  or  'knowledges,' 
as  Bacon  would  have  said,  so  surely  will  the 
whole  be  more,  and  yield  more,  than  the  mere 
sum  of  its  facts." 

"In  other  words,"  he  says  later,  "ideally 
complete  science  will  become  philosophy.  This 
conceit  or  doctrine  of  an  absolute  boundary  be- 
tween science  and  nescience  and  the  endeavor  to 
identify  with  it  a  like  sharp  separation  between 
empirical  knowledge  and  philosophic  specula- 
tion may  then,  we  conclude,  be  both  dismissed 
as  'sophistical  and  illusory.'  Nevertheless,  as  I 
have  said,  these  notions  are  widely  current  in  one 
shape  or  other,  save  among  the  few  in  these  days, 
who  have  even  a  passman's  acquaintance  with  the 
rudiments  of  epistemology.  One  of  the  most 
plausible  and  not  least  prevalent  forms  of  this 
doctrine  is  embodied  in  the  shallow  Comtian 
'Law  of  Development,'  according  to  which  there 
are  three  stages  in  human  thought,  the  theo- 
logical, the  metaphysical,  and  the  positive;  the 
metaphysical   superseding   the  theological   and 


SOME   TRADITIONAL    OBJECTIONS  Jl 

being  in  turn  superseded  by  the  positive  or 
scientific.  A  glance  at  the  past  history  of  knowl- 
edge would  show  at  once  the  facts  that  make 
these  views  so  specious  and  yet  prove  them  to  be 
false."1 

So  far,  then,  as  it  is  regarded  as  peculiarly  a 
difficulty  for  a  theistic  view,  or  as  precluding 
a  real  relation  to  God,  we  may  regard  this  ghost 
of  relativity  as  quite  exorcised  for  us. 

1  Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  pp.  23-4;  29-30. 


XI 
DIFFICULTY  IN   THE  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD 

There  are,  still,  certain  special  applications 
of  the  doctrine  of  relativity  that,  because  of  their 
direct  bearing  on  the  religious  life,  it  may  be 
worth  while  briefly  to  consider.  It  is  often 
urged,  that  the  very  terms  we  apply  to  God  show 
that  we  must  be  out  of  any  real  living  relation 
to  him.  The  term  'Absolute,'  for  example,  has 
been  made,  of  itself,  to  settle  the  whole  matter. 
The  Absolute,  it  is  said,  is  that  which  by  hypo- 
thesis is  out  of  all  relations,  and  with  which, 
therefore,  it  is  of  course  not  possible  to  come 
into  relations.  One  would  be  almost  ashamed 
to  call  attention  to  such  pure  verbal  jugglery,  if 
it  had  not  been  so  often  solemnly  paraded  as  an 
argument  of  vital  consequence.  God  is  not  the 
Absolute,  let  us  unhesitatingly  say,  as  being  un- 
related. A  being  out  of  all  relation  to  all  else — 
incapable,  that  is,  of  any  possible  reciprocal 
action  with  other  beings — would  be  as  nearly 
a  nonentity  as  we  could  well  conceive,  if  indeed 
it  were  possible  to  conceive  such  a  supposed 
being  at  all.  On  the  contrary,  God  is  the  Ab- 
solute rather,  in  that  he  is  the  being  in  whom 

73 


DIFFICULTY   IN   THE   CONCEPTION    OF   GOD  73 

all  relations  find  their  reason  and  possibility  of 
existence. 

Nor  is  God  the  Absolute  in  the  sense  that 
he  is  without  qualities.  This  would  be  to 
assert  that  he  is  without  content,  whereas  we 
must  rather  conceive  of  God  as  having  the  rich- 
est, largest,  fullest  content,  in  the  direction  of 
Spinoza's  idea  of  an  infinite  number  of  attributes. 
Positively,  the  Absolute  as  applied  to  God 
ought  to  mean,  raised  above  all  the  limitations 
which  pertain  to  the  finite  as  a  mere  part  of  a 
whole — the  final  and  fundamental  source  of 
all,  unexhausted  in  any  or  all  of  his  manifes- 
tations. 

Similar  statements  need  to  be  made  about  the 
use  of  the  word  unchangeable,  as  applied  to  God. 
God  is  unchangeable  in  the  consistency  of  the 
meaning  of  his  nature  and  of  his  loving  purpose. 
But  instead  of  this  making  it  true  that  there  can 
then  be  no  change  in  him  answering  to  our  need, 
it  rather  insures  such  adjusting  activity  as  his 
love  requires.  This  whole  false  notion  of  un- 
changeableness  in  God  goes  back  to  a  metaphysi- 
cally false  and  abandoned  notion  of  an  ever  iden- 
tical stuff  or  substance,  and  should  no  longer  be 
allowed  to  obscure  our  religious  thinking  or  liv- 
ing. We  are  to  believe  in  a  really  living  God, 
who  is  in  the  realest  reciprocal  action  with  all 


74     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

the  finite,  and  with  whom,  therefore,  our  inner 
attitude  does  make  a  difference. 

And  when  we  have  once  gotten  rid  of  these 
spectres  of  an  unthinkable  Absolute  and  of  an 
ever-identical  substance,  we  discover  that  that 
other  ghost  is  also  laid,  that  supposes  that 
there  is  some  profound  philosophical  difficulty 
in  prayer  or  in  any  revelation.  There  is,  in  truth, 
no  sound  reason,  philosophical  or  scientific,  for 
denying  that  God  has  actual  access  to  our  minds. 
Lotze  certainly  did  not  speak  without  full 
knowledge  of  all  the  difficulties  involved  when 
he  said:  "There  is  nothing  whatever  that  stands 
in  opposition  to  the  further  conviction  that  God, 
at  particular  moments  and  in  particular  per- 
sons, may  have  stood  nearer  to  humanity,  or 
may  have  revealed  himself  at  such  moments 
and  in  such  persons  in  a  more  eminent  way  than 
at  other  moments  and  in  other  persons.  ...  It 
is  even  without  doubt  legitimate  to  regard  the 
relation  in  which  he  [Christ]  stood  to  God  as 
absolutely  unique,  not  only  as  to  degree  but  also 
as  to  its  essential  quality."1 

Once  more,  I  think  religion  ought  to  count 
exorcised  that  other  philosophical  spectre,  which 
affirms  a  necessary  contradiction  between  the 
terms  Infinite  and  personality.     Of  course,  if 

1  Outlines  of  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  pp.  149,  150. 


DIFFICULTY   IN   THE   CONCEPTION    OF   GOD  75 

one  starts,  as  Paulsen  does,  with  a  definition  of 
personality  as  "the  form  peculiar  to  human 
life,"  that  by  hypothesis  restricts  it  to  the  finite, 
it  is  easy  to  prove  that  such  personality  cannot 
belong  to  the  Infinite.  But  the  continuation 
of  Paulsen's  own  argument,  though  he  calls  his 
view  "pantheistic,"  really  shows  that  he  him- 
self cannot  rest  there:  "Pantheism,  as  we  under- 
stand it,  has  no  intention  of  depriving  God  of 
anything  or  of  denying  him  anything  but  human 
limitations.  It  will  not  permit  us  to  define  God 
by  the  concept  of  personality,  simply  because 
the  notion  is  too  narrow  for  the  infinite  fulness 
and  depth  of  his  being.  Still,  in  order  to  re- 
move the  apprehension,  we  might  call  God  a 
supra-personal  being,  not  intending  thereby  to 
define  his  essence,  but  to  indicate  that  God's 
nature  is  above  the  human  mind,  not  below  it. 
And  Pantheism  might  add  that  it  finds  no  fault 
with  anyone  for  calling  God  a  personal  being 
in  this  sense.  Insomuch  as  the  human  mind  is 
the  highest  and  most  important  thing  that  we 
know,  we  can  form  an  idea  of  God  only  by  in- 
tensifying human  attributes That  is  the 

possible  and  inevitable  anthropomorphism  of 
all  religions.'1''1 

It    seems    wholly    legitimate    not    only    but, 

1  Paulsen:    Introduction  to  Philosophy,  pp.  254,  255. 


76      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

for  our  ultimate  thinking,  far  more  satis- 
factory to  say,  as  Lotze  essentially  does,  that 
the  fact  is,  that  so  far  from  being  true  that 
personality  is  inconsistent  with  the  Infinite,  it 
is  rather  true  that  personality  can  be  regarded 
as  complete  and  perfect  only  in  the  Infinite.  He 
alone,  whose  being  is  not  bestowed  by  another 
and  therefore  in  much  necessarily  hidden;  he 
alone,  who  is  not  a  mere  part  in  a  whole;  he 
alone,  whose  memory  may  infallibly  gather  all 
the  past;  he  alone,  whose  life  is  absolutely  self- 
conditioned — he  alone  can  have  complete  self- 
consciousness  and  perfect  freedom,  can  thus  be 
a  perfect  personality.1  The  terms  Infinite  and 
personal,  thus,  do  not  seem  to  me  contradictory. 
Moreover,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the 
alternative  conceptions,  suggested  by  such  terms 
as  "Impersonal  Spirit,"  "Moral  World  Order," 
"Infinite  Substance,"  "Self-developing  Idea," 
we  are  really  not  able  to  think  at  all  without 
at  least  tacit  reference  to  the  notion  of  personal 
spirit.  It  may  well  be,  that  God  transcends  all 
our  highest  thought,  and  in  this  sense  may  be 
called  "supra-personal,"  though  this  is  for  us 
wholly  empty  of  content;  but  our  highest  pos- 
sible conception  of  him,  nevertheless,  is  as  per- 
sonal. 

1  Cf.  King:    Reconstruction  in  Theology,  pp.  209-210. 


DIFFICULTY   IN   THE   CONCEPTION    OF    GOD  77 

Perhaps  no  one  in  modern  literature  has  in- 
dicated more  effectively  the  legitimacy  of  this 
argument,  from  the  best  in  the  human  to  the 
divine,  than  Browning,  in  the  latter  part  of  his 
"Saul."  This  is  hardly  less  than  a  consummate 
study  of  the  way  by  which  inspiration  may  come, 
and  its  resulting  mood.  The  whole  theme  of 
the  latter  part  of  the  poem  is  that  God  cannot 
be  less  than  man  at  his  best,  even  in  man's  wil- 
lingness to  suffer  for  love's  sake.  And  the  whole 
world  seems  to  David,  in  Browning's  closing 
paragraph,  to  feel  the  awe  of  this  revelation, 
and  to  throb  with  this  vision  of  an  infinitely 
loving,  suffering  God: 

"I  believe  it!    'Tis  thou,  God,  that  givest,  'tis  I  who  receive: 
In  the  first  is  the  last,  in  thy  will  is  my  power  to  believe." 

"See   the   King — I   would  help   him  but  cannot,   the  wishes  fall 
through. 
Could  I  wrestle  to  raise  him  from  sorrow,  grow  poor  to  enrich, 
To  fill  up  his  life,  starve  my  own  out,  I  would — knowing  which, 
I  know  that  my  service  is  perfect. 
Oh,  speak  through  me  now ! 
Would  I  suffer  for  him  that  I  love? 
So  wouldst  thou — so  wilt  thou ! 

So  shall  crown   thee  the   topmost,   ineffablest,   uttermost  crown — 
And  thy  love  fill  infinitude  wholly,  nor  leave  up  nor  down 
One  spot  for  the  creature  to  stand  in!" 

Browning  often  argues  that  will  is  more  than 
power,  and  love  than  will;  and  that  God  can- 


78      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

not  be  less  in  any  of  these  ways  than  man  at 
\]  his  best.  We  have  no  higher  capacities  for  the 
true  vision  of  God  than  exactly  the  divinest 
qualities  in  ourselves, — the  qualities  of  a  seek- 
ing, suffering,  self-giving  love.  This  is  a 
fully  justified  part  of  that  "inevitable  anthro- 
pomorphism of  all  religions"  of  which  Paulsen 
speaks.  No  philosophical  inheritances  need  be 
regarded  as  invalidating  the  essence  of  this 
contention. 

vj 


XII 

THE  DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  THE  SCIENTIFIC 
AND  RELIGIOUS  PROBLEMS 

We  have  now  passed  in  review  the  miscon- 
ceptions, injurious  to  the  spiritual  life,  which 
arise  from  ignoring  the  likeness  and  connec- 
tions of  the  spiritual  life  with  the  rest  of  life. 
And  we  turn  now  to  note  the  misconceptions 
which  come  from  ignoring  the  real  difference 
of  the  spiritual  life,  its  unique  sphere  and  con- 
tribution. 

In  the  first  place,  we  may  get  into  great 
darkness  from  forgetting  that  the  problems  of 
religious  faith  have  certain  distinctive  differ- 
ences from  those  in  natural  science;  for  to 
forget  these  differences  is  to  expect  an  impos- 
sible solution  in  religion. 

This  means,  if  we  are  to  keep  clear  of  delu- 
sion here,  we  must,  first,  carefully  observe 
science's  threefold  restriction  of  itself  to  ex- 
perience, to  the  tracing  of  purely  causal  con- 
nections, and  to  phenomena. 

The  restriction  to  experience  implies  a  clear 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  science  cannot  in 
any  case  anticipate  results  independent  of  pre- 

79 


80     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

vious  experience  in  the  same  or  similar  lines. 
And  this  really  means  that  the  full  cause  of  the 
next  stage  in  the  observed  process  is  not  present 
for  it  in  the  stage  now  under  observation,  in 
even  the  most  favorable  cases.  Hume  is  right, 
here,  in  asserting  that,  in  truth,  we  never  really 
see  the  causal  connection.  At  most  only  a  part 
of  the  conditions  disclose  themselves  to  even  the 
finest  scientific  analysis  in  the  finite  things  and 
properties.  It  seems  plain  that  in  this  aspect, 
then,  natural  science  itself  looks  to  and  re- 
quires an  ultimate  ideal  view  to  complete  it. 

The  restriction  to  the  tracing  of  purely  causal 
connections — though  even  this,  as  we  have  just 
seen,  is  not  ultimate — means  that  the  one  great 
question  for  natural  science  is  the  question  of 
process — how  the  thing  came  to  be — of  me- 
chanical explanation,  not  the  question  of  mean- 
ing. Thus,  to  use  Paulsen's  illustration,  there 
are  two  quite  different  questions  as  to  a  page 
of  print:  How  did  it  come  to  be,  what  were 
the  processes  involved?  and  what  does  the  page 
mean?  Now  the  question  as  to  process  is  the 
question  of  science.  But  the  religious  question 
is  primarily  and  necessarily  one  of  meaning, 
of  ideal  interpretation.  This  distinction  holds, 
although  it  is  to  be  not  only  granted  but  as- 
serted, that  in  an  ultimate  philosophical  view 


SCIENTIFIC    AND    RELIGIOUS    PROBLEMS  8 1 

the  two  questions  cannot  be  kept  absolutely 
apart;  there  we  must  ask  as  to  their  mutual 
relations.  Now  it  is  to  be  observed  that  re- 
ligion's question  of  the  meaning  of  things  can- 
not be  solved  in  the  same  way  as  science's  ques- 
tion of  process;  though  religion,  desiring  to 
know  exactly  how  God  has  acted,  must  take  full 
account  of  all  the  facts  brought  out  by  scien- 
tific investigation,  and  must  grant  absolute 
freedom  of  investigation.  But  when  all  science's 
facts  of  process  are  fully  set  forth,  the  question 
of  their  meaning  still  remains  unanswered; 
and  the  precise  point  now  to  be  noted,  I  repeat, 
is  that  this  question  of  meaning  that  presses 
upon  the  religious  inquiry,  it  is  impossible  to 
answer  in  the  same  way  as  the  scientific  ques- 
tion of  process.  The  attempt,  therefore,  to 
solve  the  problem  of  religious  thinking  and 
living  just  as  the  scientific  problem  is  solved,  is 
foredoomed  to  failure.  We  can  know  before- 
hand that  such  a  solution  is  impossible.  The 
two  problems  differ  widely. 

Once  more,  science's  restriction  of  itself  to 
phenomena  means  that  all  ultimate  questions 
are  left  out  of  account  as  not  so  reachable.  It 
is  this  very  fact,  probably,  that  makes  it  so 
easily  possible  for  scientific  investigators,  when 
they  turn  from  strict  scientific  inquiry  to  philo- 

6 


82      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE   SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

sophical  questions,  to  lose  sight  of  the  far  reach- 
ing character  of  the  assumptions  involved  in 
terms  which  they  use  as  matters  of  course.  A 
method  of  investigation  that  deliberately — and 
for  its  own  limited  questions,  wisely — ignores 
all  ultimate  problems  evidently  will  not  solve 
these  ultimate  problems.  Upon  these  we  can 
get  light  only  by  extended  inference  from  as- 
certained facts,  guided  by  the  laws  and  de- 
mands of  our  own  being.  Even  a  single  science, 
like  chemistry,  when  it  tries  to  become  in  its 
own  sphere  a  rational  system  of  thought,  is 
obliged  to  go  quite  beyond  the  phenomenal 
and  bring  in  much  of  hypothesis  and  distant 
inference. 

From  the  point  of  view,  then,  of  any  one  of 
science's  own  three  restrictions  of  itself,  it  is 
plain  that  the  religious  problem  is  not  the 
same  as  the  scientific  problem,  and  hence  can- 
not be  solved  in  the  same  way.  Science,  there- 
fore, as  such,  does  not  bar  the  way  to  faith. 

Moreover,  in  tracing  out  the  difference  be- 
tween the  scientific  and  religious  problem,  it 
is  worth  noting  that  science  itself  is  an  ideal 
construction  of  the  world — an  attempt  to  think 
the  world  into  unity  in  mathematico-mechanical 
terms.  That  is,  science  is  itself  an  ideal  which 
the   mind   freely  creates,   cherishes,    and   seeks 


SCIENTIFIC    AND    RELIGIOUS    PROBLEMS  83 

to  realize;  and,  as  itself  such  an  ideal,  cannot, 
to  follow  Miinsterberg's  thought,  legitimately 
rule  out  other  ideals — aesthetic,  ethical,  or  re- 
ligious. Rather,  as  James  suggests,  the  com- 
parative success  of  science  is  an  encouragement 
in  the  pursuit  of  the  other  more  difficult  ideals 
of  thinking  the  world  into  unity  in  aesthetic, 
ethical,  or  religious  terms. 

Once  more,  the  scientific  problem  may  be 
called  a  purely  intellectual  one;  although  even 
here,  in  the  highest  scientific  questions,  imag- 
ination must  be  used;  and  Lange,  though  the 
sympathetic  historian  of  materialism,  believed 
that  the  greatest  scientific  discoveries  have 
always  been  made  by  those  who  worked  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  ideal.  Still,  in  general, 
it  may  be  truly  affirmed  that  the  scientific 
problem  is  a  purely  intellectual  one.  In  such 
investigations  one  may  wisely  set  aside  all 
reference  to  feeling  and  volition.  The  ques- 
tion is  simply  one  of  exact  intellectual  formu- 
lation, where  any  obtrusive  feeling,  or  thought 
of  extraneous  purpose  would  only  hinder  the 
result. 

That  is  never  true  of  really  ultimate  ques- 
tions, and  never  true  in  real  living.  We  have 
already  seen  that  even  the  problem  of  pure 
knowing  cannot  be  solved  in  merely  intellectual 


84     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

terms.  While,  then,  in  its  proximate  inquiries, 
natural  science  may  very  properly  cultivate 
the  coldly  intellectual  mood  and  ignore  all 
other  appeals;  for  religion  to  do  so  would  be 
to  take  the  thoroughly  unscientific  position  of 
ignoring  most  important  data,  and  so  making 
a  true  solution  impossible.  This  is  no  attempt 
to  evade  truth,  but  the  "appeal  from  a  partial 
and  fragmentary  truth  to  a  fuller  truth."  The 
contrast  between  scientific  and  religious  faith 
may,  perhaps,  be  put  in  this  form:  scientific 
faith  takes  account,  and  needs  to  take  account, 
only  of  intellectual  data;  while  religious  faith 
takes  account  of  the  data  involved  in  the  feel- 
ing of  dependence,  in  aesthetic  feelings  and  in 
ethical  feelings.  Where  these  are  overlooked, 
naturally,  as  Lotze  says,  "a  very  barren  rational- 
ism takes  the  place  of  that  which  the  whole 
reason,  acting  in  all  directions  would  be  able  to 
produce."1  "The  whole  man  is  the  organ  of 
the  spiritual." 

1  Outlines  of  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  7. 


XIII 

THE    DIFFERENCE    BETWEEN   THE   PHILO- 
SOPHICAL AND  RELIGIOUS  PROBLEMS 

But  difficulty  for  the  spiritual  life  and  thought 
may  come,  also,  from  ignoring  the  difference 
of  the  religious  problem  from  the  philosophical 
problem,  as  ordinarily  conceived.  I  am  con- 
fident, that  many  serious  difficulties  arise  from 
the  silent  assumption,  even  on  the  part  of  theis- 
tic  and  Christian  thinkers,  that  philosophy  as 
commonly  conceived  is  an  inference  from  all 
accessible  data;  but  this  assumption  is  plainly 
erroneous.  We  forget  that  philosophy,  as  com- 
monly taught,  even  in  our  avowedly  Christian 
colleges,  intentionally  ignores  and  abstracts 
from  all  those  facts  that  are  involved  in  what 
we  call  historical  revelation. 

Now,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  it  is  a  per- 
fectly legitimate  and  valuable  question  to  ask, 
What  may  I  learn  about  the  ultimate  source 
of  things,  about  the  meaning  of  the  world  and 
men,  wholly  apart  from  the  facts  of  the  so-called 
historical  revelation?  But  we  may  never  for- 
get that  the  question  so  put  is  a  partial  one, 

85 


86     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

and  deliberately  sets  aside  the  most  important 
and  vital  facts  of  the  world — the  preeminent 
spiritual  facts  of  the  race,  the  world's  greatest 
teachers,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  religion.  It 
simply  puts  outside  of  its  data  such  very  signifi- 
cant and  indubitable  facts — on  any  possible 
theory — as  Amos,  Hosea,  Isaiah,  and  Jesus. 
Now  a  philosophy,  I  submit,  that  ignores  these 
facts,  is  plainly  not  all-embracing  in  its  survey 
of  data,  and,  therefore,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
cannot  expect  a  complete  solution,  and  cannot 
be  an  adequate  final  philosophy  for  life  or 
thought. 

If,  however,  we  choose  to  restrict  the  term 
philosophy,  as  is  commonly  done,  to  the  partial 
inquiry  which  ignores  the  most  stupendous 
facts  of  the  race — and  I  do  not  quarrel  with  the 
usage,  provided  we  clearly  understand  it — then 
philosophy  must  look  to  theology  for  its  own 
completion,  as  the  only  systematic  inquiry  that 
means  in  very  truth  to  build  upon  all  the  data. 
I  know  nothing  that,  on  either  scientific  or 
philosophical  grounds,  can  justify  us  in  expect- 
ing a  satisfactory  conclusion  from  an  inquiry 
into  the  meaning  of  the  world,  that  totally 
ignores  the  supremely  significant  fact  of  the 
world — the  man  Jesus,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
line   of   prophets   that   preceded   him.     What- 


PHILOSOPHICAL    AND    RELIGIOUS     PROBLEMS  87 

ever  one's  point  of  view,  as  data  for  a  discern- 
ment of  the  meaning  of  things,  these  great 
personalities,  it  would  seem,  ought  to  count 
quite  as  much  as  things  and  events.  And 
Paulsen  is  not  without  some  perception  of  this 
fact;  for,  after  speaking  of  various  dogmas  and 
opinions  often  asserted  to  be  of  the  essence  of 
Christianity,  he  can  say,  "But  if  I  am  allowed 
to  say  what  I  mean  and  to  believe  what  I  can  un- 
derstand and  conceive,  then,  unmindful  of  the 
ridicule  of  the  scoffer  and  the  hatred  of  the 
guardian  of  literalism,  I  may,  even  in  our  days, 
confess  to  a  belief  in  God  who  has  revealed 
himself  in  Jesus.  The  life  and  death  of  Jesus 
make  plain  to  me  the  meaning  of  life,  the  mean- 
ing of  all  things  in  general;  but  that  which 
enables  me  to  live  and  shows  me  the  import  of 
life  I  call  God  and  the  manifestation  of  God. 
The  most  upright,  truthful,  and  liberal-minded 
man  may  subscribe  to  all  that,  to-day,  as  openly 
as  ever  before."1 

Let  the  thinker  and  seeker  in  religion,  then, 
simply  take  account  of  the  common  restriction 
of  philosophy,  as  it  has  already  taken  account 
of  science's  self-restriction.  These  restrictions 
do  not  hold  for  the  spiritual  life,  and  do  not 
and    cannot   bind    it   in    its   conclusions.      The 

Paulsen:  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  pp.  250-251. 


88     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

spiritual   can   and   must   regard   all   data,    and 
ask  the  final  questions. 

It  may  not  be  in  vain,  in  concluding  the  dis- 
cussion upon  the  difference  of  the  religious 
problem  and  knowledge  from  the  scientific  and 
philosophical,  to  summarize  briefly  the  relations 
of  science  and  philosophy  to  theology,  as  I  con- 
ceive them. 

Both  philosophy  and  theology  raise  ultimate 
questions, — that  is,  are  not  confined  to  phenom- 
ena. Both  deal  with  ideal  interpretation,  rather 
than  mechanical  explanation.  Philosophy  is 
the  science  of  sciences,  as  using  all  sciences 
(properly  including  that  of  religion)  as  its 
data;  but  it  raises  questions  outside  the  range 
of  science  proper. 

So  theology  uses  especially  data  from  the 
science  of  religion,  and  in  this  sense  is  a  science; 
but  it  raises  questions  beyond  that  or  any  other 
science. 

A  really  adequate  philosophy  would  have  to 
take  account  of  all  facts,  including  those  of  the 
history  of  all  religions,  preeminently  the  great- 
est, and  must  culminate  in  the  question  of  God. 
So  conceived,  philosophy  would  include  the- 
ology. 

But,  as  commonly  conceived,  philosophy  ex- 
cludes  all   the  facts  of   revelation,   and   there- 


PHILOSOPHICAL    AND    RELIGIOUS     PROBLEMS  89 

fore,  to  complete  itself,  must  look  to  theology. 
Theology,  then,  becomes  the  crown  and  cul- 
mination of  both  science  and  philosophy — itself 
both  a  science  and  philosophy  of  religion  and 
of  God,  who  is  the  ultimate  explanation  of  all. 

The  difference  of  the  religious  problem  from 
the  aesthetic  and  ethical  can  be  best  seen  in 
the  later  study  of  the  natural  conditions  of  the 
spiritual  life. 

In  the  consideration  of  the  removable  causes  of 
the  seeming  unreality  of  the  spiritual  life,  we 
turn  now  to  the  discussion  of  the  unreality 
which  is  due  to  mistaking  the  nature  of  the 
spiritual  life  itself. 


XIV 

THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE  NOT  A  LIFE  OF  STRAIN 

From  these  inherited  difficulties,  which  af- 
fect both  religious  thinking  and  living,  we 
turn  to  another  class  of  misconceptions  particu- 
larly affecting  concrete  religious  living,  and 
which  arise  from  mistaking  the  nature  of  the 
spiritual  life  itself,  as  a  life  of  strain,  or  a  life 
of  imitation  or  repetition  of  others'  experiences, 
or  a  life  of  magical  inheritance,  or,  finally,  a 
life  of  rules  laid  on  from  without.  These  mis- 
conceptions follow  plainly  from  ignoring  the 
great  fundamental  psychical  conditions  already 
reviewed;  but  they  influence  so  powerfully  the 
spiritual  life,  and  end  so  inevitably  in  a  sense 
of  its  unreality,  that  they  deserve  to  be  thus 
brought  together,  and  definitely  set  aside. 

And,  first,  the  spiritual  life  is  not  a  life  of 

strain,  either  in  the  sense  of  putting  pressure 

upon  the  mind  to  hold  certain  beliefs,  or  in  the 

sense  of  keeping  up  a  certain  continuous  stress 

of  attention.     It  is  a  real  struggle,  a  continuing 

conflict,  a  life  of  steady  facing  of  duty;    but 

still  it  should  not  be,  in  any  hysterical  sense,  a 

life  of  strain. 

90 


THE    SPIRITUAL    LIFE    NOT    A    LIFE    OF    STRAIN        9 1 

This  means,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  man 
who  wishes  to  have  the  spiritual  life  a  reality 
to  him,  will  not  bring  any  pressure  upon  his 
mind  to  hold  certain  beliefs.  He  will  rather 
see  clearly  that  his  sole  responsibility  is  simply 
to  put  himself  face  to  face  with  the  great  reali- 
ties, and  to  make  an  honest  response  to  them. 
He  is  honestly  to  give  them  their  opportunity 
with  him,  through  earnest  attention  to  the  truth; 
but  that  is  all ;  he  can  make  no  great  convictions 
to  order.  It  should  need  no  argument  to  cause 
us  to  admit,  with  Dr.  Bushnell,  that  to  put 
pressure  on  the  mind,  for  whatever  end,  is,  to 
begin  with,  dishonest;  and  we  cannot  ration- 
ally hope  that  dishonesty  will  help  to  the  sense 
of  the  reality  of  a  spiritual  life,  that  must  be 
from  the  bottom  ethical.  Dishonesty,  in  any 
form,  is  itself  hollow  and  false;  it  is  impossible 
that  it  should  give  finally  any  genuine  reality. 

Moreover,  for  this  very  reason,  even  when 
through  mere  effort  of  the  will  a  temporary 
sense  of  reality  is  given,  a  reaction  is  certain 
to  follow,  that  leaves  the  spiritual  life  less  as- 
sured than  at  first.  In  a  word,  in  every  such 
putting  of  pressure  upon  the  mind  to  believe 
certain  things,  there  is  always  some  latent  sense 
of  pretense  and  unreality,  that  can  never  give 
a  solid   foundation   for  spiritual   living.     The 


92      THE  SEEMING   UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

spiritual  life  calls  for  no  such  straining  to  be- 
lieve, and  only  suffers  by  it. 

The  general  Protestant  procedure  of  requir- 
ing, as  the  initial  step  in  the  religious  life,  ac- 
ceptance of  a  whole  system  of  doctrines,  has  been 
misleading,  and  has  tended  distinctly  to  the 
deadening  of  the  spiritual  life.  Some  creed, 
doubtless,  is  implied  in  all  true  living;  but  the 
beliefs  that  can  free  us  and  give  us  strength 
and  courage  are  not  the  product  of  simple  reso- 
lution, but  those  that  grow  out  of  our  own 
deepest  experience,  those  that  life  constantly 
verifies  and  justifies.  For  the  very  health  of  the 
spiritual  life  itself,  therefore,  there  is  to  be  no 
straining  to  believe  in  certain  doctrines,  or  to 
accept  certain  miracles,  no  trying  to  believe 
anything.  There  is  to  be  rather  only  that  alert 
and  open-minded  spirit,  that  believes  what  one 
must  in  view  of  honest  attention  to  the  facts. 
It  is  not  yours  to  make  free  the  truth;  rather 
"the  truth  shall  make  you  free." 

Nor,  in  the  second  place,  does  the  spiritual 
life  call  for  the  keeping  up  of  a  certain  stress 
of  feeling,  or  of  attention.  There  is  need  of 
clear  discrimination  at  this  point.  The  spiritual 
life  does  look,  of  course,  to  a  persistent,  dom- 
inant purpose  of  righteousness,  a  real  surrender 
to  the  will  of  God;   but  this  does  not  and  can- 


THE    SPIRITUAL    LIFE    NOT    A    LIFE    OF    STRAIN        93 

not  mean  the  unchanged  continuance  of  some 
particular  psychological  state,  the  constant  keep- 
ing of  some  particular  thought  or  object  fixed 
in  the  attention,  or  the  steady  maintenance  of 
some  special  state  of  feeling.  The  attempt  to 
do  everything  always  with  God  in  mind  may 
be  taken  as  an  illustration. 

This  kind  of  strained  and  false  substitute  for 
a  broad,  natural,  rational,  open-minded  spiritual 
life  seems  to  be  widely  prevalent  just  now,  not 
only  among  very  earnest  and  conscientious  people 
within  ordinary  Christian  lines,  but  particularly 
among  all  sorts  of  dealers  in  so-called  "mental 
science."  Now,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  a 
hearty  conviction  of  the  possibility  of  self-con- 
trol was  greatly  needed  by  very  many  people, 
who  had  been  practically  letting  themselves 
go,  and  consequently  had  been  making  no  honest, 
earnest  fight  for  character,  and  for  some  real 
steadiness  of  life.  Perhaps  most  men  need  to 
know  and  to  fulfil  the  conditions  of  self-control 
to  a  much  greater  degree  than  they  do — to 
come  to  see  that  character  and  peace  of  mind 
and  even  health  of  body  are  much  more  sub- 
ject to  their  control  than  they  had  thought. 
And,  in  this  multitudinous  discussion  of  our 
time,  some  real  psychological  conditions  have, 
no  doubt,  been  pointed  out,   and  some  legiti- 


94     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

mate  help  given  to  many,  in  which  all  may 
rejoice. 

But  it  is  to  be  feared  that  along  with  this 
legitimate  help  that  is  scientifically  grounded, 
there  has  been  a  much  larger  amount  of  mere 
faddism,  that  has  prescribed  some  fixed  mental 
state — sometimes  stated  in  very  religious  terms, 
and  sometimes  not — as  the  one  effectual  panacea 
for  all  ills.  So  far  as  this  is  true — and  it  is 
quite  too  true — this  means  that  multitudes  are 
put  into  an  abnormal  attitude  of  mental  strain, 
that  is  reflected  even  in  the  cast  of  their  coun- 
tenances, and  particularly  in  their  eyes,  which 
have  something  in  them  quite  akin  to  the 
hunted  look  of  the  insane.  Whatever  achieve- 
ments may  for  the  time  lie  back  of  this  attitude 
of  strain,  you  are  not  able  to  escape  the  convic- 
tion that  there  is  here  something,  in  truth,  not 
wholly  normal,  not  quite  wholesome,  something 
allied  to  the  hysterical,  that  inevitably  suggests 
that  the  true  solution  has  not  yet  been  found. 

That  this  should  be  the  impression  is  quite 
natural,  for  this  whole  conception  of  the  spiritual 
life  as  a  life  of  strain,  in  the  first  place,  requires 
a  psychological  impossibility.  Neither  in  body 
nor  in  mind  are  we  fitted  to  maintain  a  fixed 
state  of  feeling  or  a  fixed  attitude  of  attention. 
The  persistent  attempt,  therefore,  is  likely  to 


THE     SPIRITUAL     LIFE    NOT    A     LIFE    OF    STRAIN         95 

result  in  a  speedy  and  pretty  complete  nervous 
breakdown — cases  by  no  means  uncommon — or 
to  bring  about  something  very  like  the  "insistent 
ideas"  of  the  insane.  And  in  either  case,  where 
a  radical  conscientiousness  has  pervaded  the  at- 
tempt, when  the  mood  has  once  passed,  it  is 
likely  to  end  in  a  still  more  baffled  sense  of  un- 
reality. It  is  the  least  conscientious  here,  who 
suffer  least. 

But,  probably,  most  of  those  whose  theory 
of  the  religious  life  involves  a  life  of  strain,  the 
psychological  impossibility  of  their  theory  will 
not  deter.  They  cannot  allow  themselves  to  be 
so  daunted.  But  it  may  weigh  with  them  to 
consider  that  such  a  conception  of  religion  re- 
duces it  to  a  thoroughly  man-made  affair.  No 
doubt,  in  most  cases,  this  would  seem  to  them 
the  very  antithesis  of  their  intention.  But  it 
remains  true  that,  however  religious  the  phrase- 
ology in  which  the  view  is  set  forth,  any  theory 
of  the  religious  life  that  calls  for  this  sort  of 
psychological  tension  really  leaves  God  quite  out 
of  account.  For  if  God  is  real  at  all,  and  our 
relation  to  him  is  a  reality,  the  conviction  of 
that  reality  is  not  to  be  simply  our  product,  a 
thing  up  to  which  we  must  strain.  There  are, 
no  doubt,  conditions  upon  our  part  to  be  ful- 
filled normally  and  rationally.     But  the  sense 


96      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

of  reality  of  the  spiritual  world  which  we  are 
seeking  cannot  come  simply  as  forced  by  us, 
but  only  as  the  result  of  interaction  with  the 
great  realities  themselves.  It  is  wholly  true, 
as  has  been  already  insisted  upon,  that  there  can 
be  no  mere  passivity  on  our  part;  we  do  actively 
cooperate.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the  activity 
is  never  merely,  nor  even  chiefly,  ours,  if  we 
are  dealing  with  reality  here  at  all.  Let  us 
never  forget  that,  in  Herrmann's  words,  "the 
certainty  of  God  is  not  the  product  of  human 
strivings."  That  must  be  primarily  God's  work, 
done  upon  certain  plain  conditions  plainly  al- 
lowed by  our  normal  life.  One  cannot  wisely 
attempt,  either  for  himself  or  for  others,  to  do 
God's  work. 

One  may  appeal  here  confidently  to  the  life 
of  Jesus.  Is  there  the  slightest  suggestion  in 
his  spirit,  that  his  clear  sense  of  the  reality  of 
the  spiritual  world  is  in  any  way  hysterical? 
On  the  contrary,  is  not  the  whole  temper  of 
his  life  that  of  a  confident  trust,  as  of  one  walk- 
ing in  the  very  presence  of  God,  to  whom  it 
were  absurd  to  suggest  that  the  sense  of  the 
reality  of  God  depended  upon  some  strained 
attitude  of  attention  or  painfully  maintained 
mood  of  feeling,  and  so  might  vanish  at  any 
moment  when   the   tension   became   too  great? 


THE    SPIRITUAL     LIFE    NOT    A    LIFE    OF    STRAIN        97 

The  whole  meaning  of  his  life  seems  rather  to 
say,  "God  can  be  counted  upon.  The  life  in  re- 
lation to  him  is  no  mere  imaginary  one,  which 
you  are  forced  to  make;  it  is  a  real  life  in 
which  he  is  constantly  at  work.  I  am  come  to 
give  you  the  most  positive  assurance  upon  that 
point." 


XV 

THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE  NOT  A  LIFE  OF 
IMITATION 

It  is  equally  important  for  us  to  remember, 
if  the  spiritual  life  is  to  be  real  to  us,  that  it 
is  not  a  life  of  the  imitation  or  repetition  of 
the  experience  of  others.  That  we  need  others 
here,  as  elsewhere,  is  clear.  That  we  come  into 
most  that  is  of  value  to  us,  through  introduc- 
tion by  some  other,  is  also  plain.  Nevertheless, 
if  the  spiritual  world  is  to  have  the  fullest 
reality  for  us — the  reality  it  ought  to  have  for 
a  mind  awakened  to  mature  self-consciousness — 
we  must  have  some  experience  in  the  spiritual 
that  is  genuinely  our  own,  not  a  hollow  echo 
of  something  we  have  heard  from  others. 

In  a  Christian  community,  where  the  lan- 
guage of  religious  experience  is  familiar,  per- 
haps there  is  no  greater  danger  besetting  the 
spiritual  life  than  this  danger  of  merely  imitating 
the  experience  of  others.  To  face  the  reality 
of  a  genuine  religious  experience,  heartily  to 
fulfil  the  conditions  upon  which  alone  it  may 
become   genuinely   ours,    means    much    that    is 

uncomfortable — real  willingness  to  see  the  facts 

98 


THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE  NOT  A  LIFE  OF  IMITATION  99 

of  our  own  life  and  need  as  they  are,  the  break- 
ing down  of  our  pride,  the  giving  up  of  our 
selfishness  and  self-indulgence,  the  putting  of 
ourselves  really  and  persistently  in  the  presence 
of  God's  supreme  revelation  in  Christ.  This  is 
not  easy.  Men  naturally  shrink  from  it.  It  is 
far  easier  to  satisfy  oneself  with  a  very  shallow 
dealing  with  the  problem  of  our  life,  and  then 
to  catch  up  the  traditional  language  of  religious 
experience  from  others. 

This  temptation,  in  the  individual  himself, 
is  increased  by  the  virtual  demand  that  has  been 
very  generally  made  by  the  Church,  that  there 
must  be  a  full  expression  of  the  meaning  of  the 
Christian  life  at  the  very  beginning,  or  even 
as  a  condition  of  entering  upon  it  at  all.  But 
how  is  it  possible  that  this  should  honestly  be? 
It  seems  very  like  requiring  a  student  to  pass 
upon  a  course  as  a  condition  of  entering  it.  A 
confession  of  Christ  that  means  anything  must 
be  one's  own,  the  honest  expression  of  what 
one  has  already  found  Christ  to  be.  A  confes- 
sion of  faith  requires  that  the  faith — the  living 
experience — should  be  there,  before  we  confess 
it.  But  how  can  a  man  confess  the  divinity  of 
Christ,  for  example,  as  a  condition  of  becoming 
a  disciple  of  Christ?  The  only  confession  of 
Christ's    divinity,    that    can   be   even    approxi- 


IOO      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

mately  adequate,  can  come  only  in  his  disciple- 
ship,  in  one's  deepening  experience  of  what 
Christ  has  come  to  be  to  him.  Plainly,  Christ's 
own  little  circle  of  the  twelve  came  only  gradu- 
ally, under  association  with  him,  to  any  ade- 
quate confession  of  him.  We  have  no  right  to 
require  more.  The  point  of  insistence  is,  not 
that  we  should  accept  the  creed  of  the  apostles 
in  order  to  come  into  their  experience,  but 
rather  that  we  should  seek  an  experience  like 
the  apostles,  that  may  fruit  in  a  like  confession, 
which  can  then  be  genuinely  our  own. 

The  very  familiarity  with  the  language  of 
religious  experience,  then,  the  instinctive  temp- 
tation to  catch  up  the  expression  of  life 
rather  than  to  insist  upon  the  life  itself,  and 
the  demand  of  the  Church  for  an  expression 
of  Christian  life  quite  beyond  the  possibility 
of  experience, — all  combine  to  produce  the  far 
too  general  habit  of  expressing  more  than  has 
been  personally  known  and  experienced,  and 
hence  to  give  the  sense  of  unreality.  This  is, 
to  my  mind,  the  most  serious  danger,  for  ex- 
ample, of  the  Christian  Endeavor  pledge,  par- 
ticularly with  those  quite  young,  where  the 
matter  is  not  carefully  guarded.  They  are 
pledged  to  speak,  whether  they  have  really  some- 
thing of  their  own  to  say  or  not.    They  naturally 


THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE  NOT  A  LIFE  OF  IMITATION        IOI 

catch  up  the  language  of  Christian  experience, 
which  they  have  heard  from  others.  Gradually, 
if  they  are  thoughtful  and  conscientious  and 
have  not  been  making  unusual  growth,  they 
come  to  feel  that  their  language  is  no  true 
reflection  of  their  own  experience.  They  feel 
its  hollowness;  a  reaction  sets  in;  and  a  most 
depressing  sense  of  the  unreality  of  the  spiritual 
life  naturally  succeeds.  We  must  not  shut  our 
eyes  to  such  dangers.  In  any  case,  wherever  the 
religious  life  becomes,  to  any  large  degree,  a 
life  of  mere  imitation  or  repetition  of  others' 
experiences,  and  the  person  is  at  all  thoughtful, 
there  the  spiritual  life  is  certain  to  come  to 
seem  thoroughly  unreal. 


XVI 

THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE  NOT  A  LIFE  OF 
MAGICAL  INHERITANCE 

A  third  misconception  of  the  nature  of  the 
spiritual  life,  which  is  certain  finally  to  give 
the  sense  of  its  unreality,  is  that  it  is  a  life  of 
magical  inheritance  of  results. 

Our  own  time  is  particularly  liable  to  have 
this  feeling.  So  far  as  the  scientific  spirit  really 
affects  men,  they  are  certain  to  give  increasing 
emphasis  to  the  necessity,  in  all  spheres,  of  the 
recognition  of  laws,  of  conditions,  and  of  time. 
If  results  in  the  spiritual  life,  therefore,  are 
conceived  as  coming  without  clear  conditions, 
in  a  kind  of  merely  magical  way,  that  life 
unavoidably  takes  on  for  such  minds  a  decided 
aspect  of  unreality.  It  has  no  intelligible  con- 
nection with  the  rest  of  their  life,  and  there 
seems  to  be  nothing  they  can  do  with  it.  This 
makes  it  imperative  that  those,  who  would  make 
the  spiritual  world  a  reality  for  the  most  wide- 
awake minds  of  our  time,  must  themselves  see 
the  spiritual  life  as  a  genuine  sphere  of  laws, 

with  its  own  clear  conditions  that  can  be  known 

1 02 


NOT  A   LIFE  OF   MAGICAL  INHERITANCE  IO3 

and  stated  and  fulfilled,  with  a  certainty  of  re- 
sults following.  It  is  not  the  frills  of  scientific 
illustration  that  the  interpreter  of  the  spiritual 
life  needs  to-day,  but  the  genuine  scientific 
spirit  in  the  study  of  his  own  greatest  sphere. 
Drummond's  greatest  contribution  to  the 
thought  of  his  time  lay  just  here.  And  there 
is  still  great  opportunity  for  a  thoughtful  carry- 
ing on  of  his  central  contention  of  law  in  the 
spiritual  world. 

And  even  for  those  who  are  not  consciously, 
and  perhaps  not  at  all,  affected  by  the  scientific 
temper  of  our  times,  there  is  a  similar  baffling 
sense  of  the  unreality  of  spiritual  things,  if  the 
magical  conception  largely  prevails.  Even  such 
must  have  the  sense  that,  in  their  religious  life, 
they  are  simply  feeling  around  in  the  dark. 
What  may  result,  they  can  have  no  idea;  much 
disappointment  is  certain;  they  can  only  hope 
that  here  and  there  something  of  what  they 
seek  may  be  stumbled  upon.  And  when  even 
such  minds  turn  to  the  ordinary  avocations  of 
their  lives,  and  note  how  confidently  they  may 
count  upon  results  following  upon  conditions, 
they  can  hardly  fail  to  contrast  the  sharp  out- 
lines of  this  real  life  of  work  with  the  dimness 
of  the  spiritual. 

And  none  of  us  may  forget  without  distinct 


104     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

and  large  loss  that  the  spiritual  life,  like  all 
life,  is  a  growth,  always  involving  laws,  con- 
ditions, and  time.  To  forget  or  ignore  this,  is 
to  make  it  certain  that  the  spiritual  life  will 
become  unreal  to  us.  That  is  simply  to  say  that 
we  are  bound  to  take  account  of  the  common 
psychological  conditions  of  our  life,  already 
considered,  and  particularly  to  note  the  special 
laws  of  the  spiritual  life  itself,  to  be  considered 
later.  These  laws,  in  a  word,  are  the  laws  of  a 
deepening  personal  relation,  which  every  day's 
true  living  makes  better  known. 


XVII 

THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE  NOT  A  LIFE  OF 
EXTERNAL  RULES 

But  if  we  are  not  to  make  the  mistake  of 
thinking  of  the  spiritual  life  as  a  life  of  magical 
inheritance,  but  rather  as  clearly  involving  laws 
and  conditions,  neither  are  we  to  make  the 
opposite  mistake  of  conceiving  the  spiritual  life 
as  a  life  of  rules  laid  on  from  without.  Counsels 
to  be  heeded  there  certainly  are  in  the  religious 
life,  and  valuable  habits  to  be  formed.  Never- 
theless, the  heart  of  the  life  with  God  can  never 
be  contained  in  any  prescribed  routine  of  rules 
and  regulations.  We  are  called  to  a  real  life, 
with  its  own  spontaneous  growth  and  varied 
expressions,  and  we  are  called  to  liberty.  Christ 
seems  to  have  been  concerned,  not  to  give  rules 
for  holy  living  or  for  holy  dying,  but  to  trust 
all  to  the  dynamic  of  the  single  motive  of  love 
to  his  person.  His  disciples  are  simply  asked 
to  be  in  truth  disciples — doing  only  what  loving 
loyalty  to  him  would  suggest.  In  the  liberty 
of  a  loyal  love,  freely  won  and  freely  given, 
they  are  to  live  out  their  lives.     No  rules  have 

any  binding  authority  which  this  love  does  not 

105 


106     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

inspire ;  and  they  have  even  secondary  authority, 
only  so  long  as  they  are  valuable  means  for  that 
love. 

The  very  essence  of  the  spiritual  life  is  a 
personal  relation  with  God.  No  more  than 
any  other  personal  relation  can  this  be  wisely 
made  a  mere  matter  of  rules.  And  just  as  any 
other  personal  relation,  this  relation  to  God  in 
the  religious  life  will  lose  its  spontaneity,  its 
joy,  its  growth,  and  its  reality,  when  external 
rules  are  made  to  determine  all.  Even  in  the 
development  of  a  personal  relation,  there  are 
clear  laws,  as  we  must  later  notice;  but  they 
are  the  laws  of  a  spontaneously  developing  life, 
not  external  rules  laid  on  from  without. 

The  spiritual  life  always  suffers,  and  loses  in 
reality,  from  an  extreme  emphasis  upon  the 
mechanical  rules  of  living,  however  good  the 
rules  in  themselves  may  be.  In  what  is  per- 
haps his  most  important  single  address — "The 
Changed  Life" — Drummond  states  incisively 
the  failure  of  the  method  of  external  rules: 
"All  these  methods  that  have  been  named — 
the  self-sufficient  method,  the  self-crucifixion 
method,  the  mimetic  method,  and  the  diary 
method — are  perfectly  human,  perfectly  natural, 
perfectly  ignorant,  and,  as  they  stand,  perfectly 
inadequate.'    Their  harm  is  that  they  distract 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE  NOT  A  LIFE  OF  EXTERNAL  RULES      IO7 

attention  from  the  true  working  method,  and 
secure  a  fair  result  at  the  expense  of  the  perfect 
one."  "The  solution  of  the  problem  of  sanctifi- 
cation  is  compressed  into  a  sentence — Reflect 
the  character  of  Christ  and  you  will  become  like 
Christ." 

Much  religious  literature,  on  account  of  its 
emphasis  on  rules  of  living,  has  had,  thus,  par- 
ticularly in  the  case  of  the  especially  conscien- 
tious, a  positively  deadening  effect.  So  much 
is  made  of  the  machinery,  that  the  man  ends 
with  the  feeling  that  it  is  all  machinery,  and  he 
is  simply  going  through  the  motions  of  life,  in- 
stead of  having  the  real  life  itself.  This  is 
particularly  true,  where  the  rules  enjoin  much 
introspection,  under  which  necessarily  the  very 
form  of  the  inner  life  changes.  Thoughtful 
and  conscientious  religious  workers,  who  have 
made  a  great  deal  of  the  organization  and  ma- 
chinery of  their  work,  are  not  unlikely  to  get 
a  similar  paralyzing  sense  that  the  results  are 
all  machine-made.  For  the  sake  of  the  reality 
of  the  spiritual  life,  then,  let  us  not  come  into 
bondage  to  external  rules.  They  are,  at  the  very 
best,  means  only,  absolutely  subordinate  in  sig- 
nificance. 

If  now,  we  definitely  set  aside  in  thought  and 
act    these    four    mistaken    conceptions    of    the 


108     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

nature  of  the  spiritual  life,  as  a  life  of  strain, 
of  imitation,  of  magical  inheritance,  and  of 
rules  from  without,  we  shall  have  done  some- 
thing to  insure  its  greater  reality:  and  as  over 
against  these  false  conceptions,  we  shall  set  the 
thought  of  a  life,  normal,  real,  effective,  free. 
These  mistaken  conceptions  of  the  nature  of 
the  spiritual  life  themselves  suggest  that  per- 
haps the  greatest  source  of  the  seeming  unreality 
of  the  spiritual  life  is  the  simple  failure  to  fulfil 
its  natural  conditions. 


FAILURE  TO  FULFIL  CONDITIONS 


XVIII 
THE  WAY  INTO  THE  GREAT  VALUES 

Plainly,  if  the  spiritual  life  is  a  true  sphere 
of  normal  living  at  all,  it  must  have  its  natural 
conditions,  and  failure  to  fulfil  these  conditions 
must  result  in  the  spiritual  life  becoming  unreal. 
The  very  fact  that  the  religious  life  is  so  inti- 
mately concerned  with  aesthetic  and  ethical  data 
makes  it  certain  that  the  natural  conditions  of 
the  spiritual  life  will  have  a  marked  similiarity 
to  the  conditions  of  recognizing  and  entering 
into  any  sphere  of  value.  And  the  fact  that  the 
religious  life  is  essentially  a  personal  relation 
with  God,  and  that  Christ's  great  commandment 
is  love  for  God  and  for  men,  makes  it  equally 
certain  that  the  conditions  of  the  spiritual  life 
are  essentially  the  same  as  the  conditions  of  a 
deepening  personal  relation. 

Here,  too,  we  may  well  note  how  far  the 
conditions  of  the  spiritual  life  are  similar  to 
the  conditions  of  aesthetic  appreciation,  and  to 
the  conditions  of  a  deepening  personal  relation, 
and  how  far  the  conditions  of  the  spiritual  life 
are  different. 

If   one   asks   first,    then,   how   it   is    that  we 


in 


1 12     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

generally  come  into  the  great  spheres  of  value, — 
of  music,  and  literature,  and  art,  and  friend- 
ship, he  must  recognize  that,  in  all  alike,  we  are 
commonly  introduced  through  the  witness  of 
some  other,  who  has  already  found  his  way  into 
an  appreciation  of  the  value.  One  who  should 
insist  on  discovering  all  values  at  first  hand 
would  inevitably  doom  himself  to  a  very  nar- 
row life.  We  naturally  count,  therefore,  in  all 
these  spheres  of  value,  on  our  inheritance  from 
the  past,  and  upon  the  certainty  that  others  may 
have  already  found  what  we  would  gladly  find. 
If,  then,  in  our  spiritual  life  we  are  ignoring 
entirely  the  witness  of  others,  if  we  are  not  at 
all  putting  ourselves  where  we  would  naturally 
get  that  witness,  we  need  not  wonder  that  we 
are  not  making  the  progress  that  would  other- 
wise be  possible. 

In  like  manner,  to  come  into  any  one  of  these 
great  values  requires  on  our  own  part  absolute 
honesty,  coupled  with  a  genuine  modesty.  On 
the  one  hand,  there  is  to  be  no  pretense  of 
having  reached  a  degree  of  appreciation  that  is 
not  yet  ours.  This  can  only  hinder  our  growth 
into  any  value.  We  shall  not,  therefore,  simply 
catch  up  the  opinions  of  others  as  our  own,  but 
speak  honestly  only  of  that  which  we  have  our- 
selves attained.     But  on  the  other  hand,  with 


THE   WAY  INTO   THE   GREAT  VALUES  II3 

an  equally  real  modesty,  we  shall  not  claim 
that  we  ourselves  have  seen  all  that  there  is  in 
any  of  these  spheres  of  value.  Doubtless  there 
is  much  more  than  we  have  yet  appreciated, 
and  we  shall  not,  therefore,  make  what  we  have 
already  seen  the  measure  of  all  reality.  We 
may  modestly  hope  that  much  that  others  have 
found,  that  we  cannot  honestly  claim  yet  to 
have  discovered  for  ourselves,  may  still  come 
to  us  if  we  continue  to  give  the  great  values 
honest  opportunity  with  us.  Here,  too,  that  is, 
our  spiritual  life  may  have  suffered  through  our 
lack  of  this  absolute  honesty,  on  the  one  hand, 
or  of  this  genuine  modesty  on  the  other. 

These  very  qualities  themselves  suggest  that 
one  great  method  of  coming  into  a  sense  of 
reality  and  achievement  in  any  of  the  great 
spheres  of  value  is,  that  we  should  simply  stay 
persistently  in  the  presence  of  the  best  in  the 
sphere  in  which  we  seek  attainment,  in  honest 
response  to  that  best.  There  need  be  no  pretense. 
We  are  called  simply  to  give  attention,  time, 
and  thought;  the  great  realities  and  values  will, 
thus,  finally  verify  themselves.  But  where  one 
has  given  a  great  value  no  opportunity  to  make 
its  own  legitimate  impression,  he  cannot  wonder 
that  the  sense  of  its  reality  and  significance  is 
lacking.     We  have  no  right  to  expect  conviction 


I  14     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

and  sense  of  value  where  we  have  not  given  the 
best  an  honest  chance  at  us.  Probably  the 
greatest  reason  for  failure  in  the  sense  of  reality 
and  achievement  in  the  spiritual  life,  as  in  the 
case  of  all  other  values,  lies  just  here.  And  it  is 
thus,  above  all,  that  "the  inner  light  fails." 

In  trying,  now,  to  transfer  to  the  religious 
life  the  conditions  of  entering  upon  any  sphere 
of  value,  how  far  must  differences  be  recog- 
nized? 

We  have  seen  that  even  in  the  case  of  aesthetic 
appreciation,  conditions  essentially  ethical,  like 
honesty  and  modesty,  could  not  be  ignored. 
And  yet,  doubtless,  in  aesthetic  appreciation,  the 
ethical  is  not  so  intrinsically  involved  as  in  the 
religious  life;  and  this  is  the  particular  point 
at  which  the  analogy  needs  careful  guarding. 

The  religious  life  can  never  be  one  of  mere 
passive  appreciation,  or  aesthetic  admiration; 
it  requires  through  and  through  the  active 
ethical  will.  The  revelation  of  God  in  Christ 
is  preeminently  the  revelation  of  an  ethical  will 
— of  character;  and  such  a  revelation  makes 
demands  upon  one;  it  is  a  constant  appeal  to 
conscience,  a  persistent  motive  to  willing.  It 
inevitably  asks,  What  are  you  going  to  do  with 
that  will  and  life?  "Will  we  willingly  sur- 
render to  the  spiritual  power  whose  influence 


THE   WAY  INTO   THE   GREAT  VALUES  115 

we  thus  perceive  to  be  all  around  us?  Or  will 
we  treat  this  incomparable  thing  as  an  every- 
day matter  and  in  laziness  forget  it  and  turn 
our  backs  on  it?  This,  at  last,  is  the  real  test- 
question  of  faith.  And  it  passes  over  immedi- 
ately into  the  other  question,  whether  or  not 
we  are  willing  to  be  sincere."1  The  very  ex- 
istence of  harmonious  personal  relation  to  God 
requires  such  an  ethical  will  in  the  worshipper. 
The  character  of  God,  then,  can  never  be  a 
mere  subject  of  passive  aesthetic  admiration;  it 
demands  a  moral  surrender  to  the  will  of  God, 
and  strenuous  endeavor  to  embody  that  will  in 
life. 

That  persistent  staying  in  the  presence  of 
the  worthful,  therefore,  which  aesthetic  appre- 
ciation requires  as  its  chief  condition,  in  the 
case  of  the  religious  life  must  mean  more  than 
a  passive  waiting.  The  religious  life  must 
recognize,  indeed,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  re- 
sulting conviction  is  not  simply  its  own  product; 
but  still  there  must  be  active,  hearty,  loyal  co- 
operation with  the  divine  will,  a  prompt  follow- 
ing of  all  light  revealed.  Nothing  less  than 
this  is  really  giving  God  and  the  spiritual  world 
a  chance  at  us.    The  religious  life  is  so  inevi- 

'Herrmann:  Communion  with  God,  p.  83. 


1 1 6     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

tably  and  indubitably  knit  up  with  the  ethical,1 
that  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  this  difference 
of  the  conditions  of  the  spiritual  life  from  those 
of  aesthetic  appreciation. 

But,  with  this  point  guarded,  the  analogy 
of  the  growing  appreciation  of  any  sphere  of 
value  has  continual  suggestion  for  the  spiritual 
life,  that  may  save  it  from  much  perplexity  and 
from  serious  blunders,  and  may  bring  it  rather 
to  some  clear  insight  into  its  own  laws. 

1  See  King:  Theology  and  the  Social  Consciousness,  Chap.  VII. 


XIX 

THE   CONDITIONS   OF  A   DEEPENING 
PERSONAL  RELATION 

It  is  perhaps  still  more  obvious  that,  if  the 
relation  to  God  is  a  personal  relation  at  all, 
the  laws  of  the  spiritual  life  must  be  primarily 
the  laws  of  a  deepening  personal  relation;  and 
that,  wherever  any  soul  is  ignoring  such  a  deep- 
ening relation  with  God  and  with  men,  he 
is  making  it  inevitable  that  the  spiritual  life 
should  seem  to  him  unreal,  and  that  he  should 
have  no  sense  of  growth  and  achievement  in  it. 

To  state,  then,  simply,  the  conditions  upon 
which  a  personal  relation  with  God  and  with 
men  would  deepen,  would  be  to  state  the  funda- 
mental laws  of  the  spiritual  life.  If  one  is 
ignoring  these  laws,  he  need  not  wonder  that 
the  spiritual  world  is  for  him  obscure. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  summarize,  at  least  sug- 
gestively, what  these  conditions  of  any  deepen- 
ing personal  relation  must  be;  for  it  is  plain 
that  every  friendship  worthy  the  name  must 
build  upon  mutual  self-revelation  and  answer- 
ing trust,  mutual  self-giving,   and   some   deep 

community  of  interests.     If  we  are  not  laying 

117 


1 1 8     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

this  foundation  in  our  relations  to  God  and  to 
men,  we  are  naturally  making  it  impossible  that 
there  should  be  reality  and  depth  in  the  rela- 
tions involved  in  our  religious  life.  One  needs, 
this  means,  to  put  himself  honestly  face  to  face 
with  God's  great  self-revelation  in  Christ,  to  give 
himself  in  real  ethical  activity  in  this  relation, 
and  to  seek  the  great  interests  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  that  lie  at  God's  own  heart.  Only  so 
is  a  real  basis  laid  for  steady  growth  into  the 
divine  friendship. 

And  when  one  asks  how  in  any  personal  re- 
lation he  may  go  forward  to  build  upon  this 
foundation,  exactly  the  same  suggestions,  that 
may  be  made  concerning  any  human  relation, 
will  be  found  to  bear  directly  upon  growth  into 
the  life  with  God.  We  must,  for  example,  count 
upon  unconscious  growth  here  rather  than  con- 
scious arrangement.  We  may  not  expect  con- 
tinuous emotion,  but  must  rely  mainly  upon 
steady  association  with  the  life  of  Christ.  We 
shall  see  that  this  personal  relation,  like  any 
other,  will  grow  naturally  by  the  expression  of 
it  in  the  various  ways  possible  to  us,  and  we 
shall  be  sure  to  be  genuine  throughout. 

That  is,  in  a  word,  this  whole  analogy  of  the 
religious  life  to  a  personal  relation  suggests 
definite   and   deep,   but  yet   simple,   conditions 


CONDITIONS  OF  DEEPENING  PERSONAL  RELATION       Iig 

that  we  may  know  and  fulfil,  and,  in  the  ful- 
filment of  them,  be  able  to  count  upon  results. 
But  this  must  mean,  also,  that,  where  these  plain 
conditions  of  a  deepening  personal  relation  are 
ignored,  the  spiritual  life  cannot  be  real  or 
significant. 

When  we  pass  to  the  consideration  of  the 
differences  between  the  conditions  of  the  relig- 
ious life  and  those  of  any  other  deepening  per- 
sonal relation,  we  are  led  here,  too,  to  see  that, 
just  because  this  conception  of  the  religious  life 
as  a  personal  relation  has  such  deep  significance, 
it  is  the  more  necessary  that  we  should  not 
unwarrantably  transfer  to  the  relation  to  God 
those  limitations  which,  because  of  our  very 
finiteness,  hold  in  the  relation  of  finite  to  finite. 
We  are,  then,  carefully  to  guard  the  conception, 
making  it  clear  to  ourselves  that  we  are  seeking 
a  relation  to  a  God  who  has  concretely  and  objec- 
tively revealed  himself  in  Christ;  and  that  we 
are  not,  therefore,  to  enter  upon  the  experiment 
of  simply  building  up  a  subjective  experience 
of  our  own. 

Not  less  are  we  to  remember  that  we  cannot, 
of  course,  expect  a  sensuous  relation  to  God 
like  that  which  accompanies,  rather  than  con- 
stitutes, our  true  spiritual  relation  to  other  per- 
sons.    Nor  should  this  analogy  mean  that  there 


120     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

is  to  be  any  failure  in  the  deepest  reverence;  in 
claiming  this  personal  relation  to  God  we  do 
not,  and  we  may  not,  put  ourselves  upon  familiar 
equality  with  God.  And  we  shall  especially 
remember  that  the  relation  to  God,  just  because 
of  what  God  is,  must  have  a  universality  all  its 
own.  Since  God  is  the  God  of  perfect  right- 
eousness and  life,  and  is  himself  the  source  of 
the  moral  constitution  of  men,  the  relation 
to  him  cannot  be  conceived  sentimentally,  but 
naturally  carries  with  it  our  relations  to  all  other 
personalities.  The  relation  to  God  is  that  one 
relation  which,  itself  set  right,  sets  all  other 
relations  right.  And  there  can  be,  therefore, 
no  such  thing  as  a  growing  religious  life  that 
does  not  mean  at  the  same  time  a  life  of  increas- 
ing faithfulness  in  all  our  human  relations. 


THE  INEVITABLE  LIMITATIONS  AND   FLUC- 
TUATIONS   OF   OUR    NATURES 


XX 

LIMITATIONS   AND    FLUCTUATIONS 
COMMON   TO   ALL   OUR   LIFE 

From  the  removable  causes  of  the  seeming 
unreality  of  the  spiritual  life  we  turn,  now,  to 
the  study  of  the  second  class  of  causes  of  this 
sense  of  unreality,  which,  while  not  removable, 
are  still  recognizable.  These  unremovable  causes 
may,  perhaps,  be  reduced  to  two:  the  inevitable 
limitations  and  fluctuations  of  our  natures,  and 
our  need  of  training  in  the  moral  and  religious 
life.  In  the  consideration  of  both,  we  may  again 
profitably  observe  how  far  the  spiritual  life  is 
here  similar  to  other  spheres  of  life,  and  how 
far,  different. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  how  large  is  the 
warrant  for  finding  in  our  inevitable  limitations 
some  of  the  most  effective  causes  of  the  seeming 
unreality  of  the  spiritual  world.  How  strong, 
for  example,  in  all  generations  has  been  the  ap- 
peal to  the  thoughtful  of  Plato's  detailed  figure 
of  the  cave!  And  it  is  interesting  to  remember 
that  the  most  influential  of  all  English  philo- 
sophical writings,  Locke's  great  Essay  Concern- 
ing Human   Understanding,  had  its  rise  from 

123 


124     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

a  like  conviction  of  the  necessary  influence  of 
our  natural  limitations.  Locke's  own  account 
of  the  matter  in  his  "epistle  to  the  reader"  is 
worth  recalling:  "Were  it  fit  to  trouble  thee 
with  the  history  of  this  Essay,  I  should  tell  thee 
that  five  or  six  friends  meeting  at  my  chamber, 
and  discoursing  on  a  subject  very  remote  from 
this,  found  themselves  quickly  at  a  stand,  by 
the  difficulties  that  arose  on  every  side.  After 
we  had  awhile  puzzled  ourselves,  without  com- 
ing any  nearer  a  resolution  of  those  doubts 
which  perplexed  us,  it  came  into  my  thoughts 
that  we  took  a  wrong  course;  and  that  before 
we  set  ourselves  upon  inquiries  of  that  nature, 
it  was  necessary  to  examine  our  own  abilities, 
and  see  what  objects  our  understandings  were 
or  were  not  fitted  to  deal  with.  This  I  proposed 
to  the  company,  who  all  readily  assented;  and 
thereupon  it  was  agreed  that  this  should  be  our 
first  inquiry.  Some  hasty,  undigested  thoughts, 
on  a  subject  I  had  never  before  considered, 
which  I  set  down  against  our  next  meeting, 
gave  the  first  entrance  into  this  discourse." 
It  is  particularly  instructive  to  find,  according 
to  the  later  testimony  of  one  of  this  memorable 
company  of  "five  or  six  friends,"  that  the  ques- 
tions under  discussion,  which  drove  Locke  to 
this  thought  of  the  inevitable  limitations  of  our 


LIMITATIONS   AND   FLUCTUATIONS  125 


understanding,  were  the  "principles  of  morality 
and  revealed  religion."1 

Any  thoughtful  consideration  of  spiritual 
themes,  indeed,  must  soon  bring  one  to  share 
with  Plato  and  Locke  the  further  conviction 
that,  in  striving  to  reach  any  rational  faith  in 
a  world  above  the  senses,  we  must  take  full 
account  of  those  difficulties  that  are  to  be  ex- 
pected from  the  very  finiteness  of  our  faculties. 
These  limitations  we  cannot  escape,  but  clearly 
to  recognize  them  is  itself  at  least  a  partial 
deliverance  from  their  domination. 

Let  us  ask,  first,  how  far  these  inevitable 
limitations  and  fluctuations  of  our  natures  pro- 
duce effects  in  the  spiritual  life  similar  to  those 
in  other  spheres  of  living. 

Our  finiteness  in  itself  must  in  much  limit 
our  insight  into  the  spiritual  world. 

In  the  first  place,  in  our  very  nature,  we  are 
discursive  beings — in  thinking  and  in  living, 
and  in  all  spheres.  Nowhere  do  we  have  im- 
mediate intuitive  insight  into  wholes.  The 
full  meaning  of  every  experience  is  brought 
to  us  only  bit  by  bit.  And  even  where  in  rare 
moments  we  seem  to  get  all  in  an  instant,  we 
commonly  are  later  able  to  see  that  this  moment 
of  vision  either  had  been   long  preparing,  or 

1  Fraser's  Locke,  pp.  xvi-xvii. 


126     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

failed  to  give  us  its  complete  significance  until 
in  discursive  thinking  we  had  wrought  it  into 
the  rest  of  our  life. 

This  finiteness  means,  too,  that  our  view  of 
the  world  is  necessarily  but  partial.  We  do 
not  stand  with  God  at  the  center  of  things,  to 
be  able  to  discern  the  full  complex  purpose 
with  which  each  thing  is  called  into  being.  At 
best,  it  must  be  a  very  small  part  of  the  whole 
detailed  plan,  which  even  with  the  most  careful 
study  we  can  come  to  see.  Doubtless,  in  much, 
as  Plato  suggested,  we  are  dealing  with  shadows 
as  though  they  were  the  realities.  Everywhere 
this  limitation  of  view  confronts  us.  Not  in 
the  most  favorable  cases  are  we  able  to  carry 
our  view  completely  through  with  certainty. 
Our  ultimate  conclusions  can  have,  at  best, 
only  practical  certainty,  a  reasonable  prob- 
ability. 

It  is  a  distinct  help  to  bear  these  necessary 
limitations  in  mind;  for  it  makes  clear  the  kind 
and  degree  of  evidence,  which  alone  we  have 
a  right  to  expect  anywhere. 

In  close  connection  with  these  inevitable  re- 
sults of  our  finiteness  as  such,  there  is  also  to 
be  considered  the  unavoidable  influence  of 
bodily  and  psychical  conditions.  We  are  con- 
cerned with  these  here,  only  so  far  as  they  are 


LIMITATIONS  AND   FLUCTUATIONS  1 27 

beyond  our  control.  So  far  as  they  are  alter- 
able, they  have  been  already  dealt  with.  The 
conditions  being  present,  we  cannot  directly 
change  their  natural  effects.  This  is  a  part  of 
our  limitation.  But,  if  we  can  clearly  recog- 
nize the  source  of  the  effects,  our  final  infer- 
ences from  these  effects  may  be  essentially 
altered. 

In  no  part  of  our  life  can  we  safely  ignore 
the  unavoidable  effects  of  bodily  conditions. 
With  all  possible  care  of  bodily  conditions  we 
cannot  preserve  an*  unvarying  state  of  body; 
and  changing  bodily  conditions  tinge  inevitably 
our  mental  states.  The  careful  study  of  the 
effects  of  fatigue,  even  in  sense-perception,  gives 
many  an  illustration.  So,  too,  the  psychical  con- 
ditions are  constantly  changing.  And  with 
this  constant  change,  however  produced,  we 
have  always  to  reckon.  That  nothing  in  life 
should  seem  always  the  same  to  us,  is  the  inevit- 
able result.  We  are  to  expect,  therefore,  from 
both  physical  and  psychical  conditions,  chang- 
ing vital  feelings,  alternation  of  moods,  altering 
power  of  attention,  and  some  consequent  ebb 
and  flow  in  conviction  and  in  the  sense  of 
reality.  We  need  not  regard  this  as  wholly  a 
weakness;  it  is  in  part,  at  least,  an  evidence  of 
the  breadth  of  our  natures.     We  are  made  on 


128      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL    LIFE 

so  broad  and  unified  a  plan,  that  we  cannot  come 
to  our  best  in  anything,  without  taking  all  sides 
of  our  nature  into  account.  But,  in  any  case, 
we  have  this  fluctuation  in  the  sense  of  reality 
to  face. 

Inevitably,  thus,  our  vital  feelings  will  change, 
and  with  them  our  general  sense  of  the  reality  of 
things;  for  feeling  is  perhaps  the  strongest 
element  in  the  living  sense  of  reality. 

Even  independently  of  the  more  strictly 
physical  vital  feelings,  in  our  very  nature  as 
psychical  beings,  we  are  creatures  of  moods  with 
their  inevitable  flux,  and  this  cannot  be  without 
its  influence  upon  our  sense  of  reality.  So  long 
as  feeling  enters  necessarily  so  much  into  our 
sense  of  the  reality  of  all  things,  the  things  of 
the  spirit  especially,  which  do  not  force  them- 
selves upon  us,  will  vary  for  us  in  their  clear- 
ness and  reality.  This  cannot  be  wholly  avoided. 
The  spiritual  life  simply  shares  here  with  all 
life  the  influence  of  the  changing  moods. 

Moreover,  so  far  as  change  in  nervous  energy 
affects  power  of  attention,  it  will  affect  our  pro- 
portionate emphasis  upon  things,  and  so  again 
our  sense  of  their  reality. 

But,  in  all  this,  let  it  be  repeated,  we  have 
nothing  that  is  peculiar  to  the  religious  life. 
It  holds  for  all  spheres  of  value,  and,  indeed,  in 


LIMITATIONS  AND   FLUCTUATIONS  129 

every  sphere  of  life  where  feeling  enters  at  all. 
This  really  implies  that,  wherever  we  are  not 
living  a  merely  fragmentary  life,  this  ebb  and 
flow  of  feeling  and  hence  of  the  sense  of  reality 
must  be  reckoned  with;  it  is  involved  in  our 
very  natures  as  finite  and  feeling  beings.  Let 
us  not  suppose,  then,  that  we  confront  here  a 
difficulty  in  any  way  peculiar  to  the  religious 
life.  Are  there  no  hours  when  the  life  of  mere 
worldly  culture,  too,  seems  flat,  stale,  and  un- 
profitable, when  a  sense  of  unreality  comes  as 
to  the  best  in  literature,  in  music,  and  in  art, 
and  one  does  not  feel  adequate  to  them?  Is 
it  not  rather  true  that  there  is  needed  a  constant 
struggle  to  maintain  the  highest  standards  in 
these  spheres  as  truly  as  in  the  religious,  whether 
in  an  individual,  in  a  community,  or  in  an  in- 
stitution of  learning? 

Moreover,  the  life  of  the  rejection  of  all 
ideals,  and  the  life  of  unbelief,  have  their  fluc- 
tuations, too.  It  is  not  merely  the  conviction 
of  the  highest  which  varies.  The  lower  life, 
also,  has  its  inevitable  misgivings.  We  are 
creatures  of  two  worlds,  an  animal  and  a 
spiritual;  and  both  make  themselves  felt  in 
some  degree.  Unbelief  has  its  questionings  as 
well  as  belief.  The  situation  is  not,  as  seems 
so  often  tacitly  assumed,  that,  if  we  once  gave 

9 


130     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

up  our  ideals,  we  should  then  rest  satisfied, 
quite  without  qualm,  or  misgiving,  or  question- 
ing. The  truth  is  rather  that,  being  citizens 
of  two  worlds,  we  cannot  wholly  escape  the  in- 
fluence of  either.  We  may  not  choose  whether 
our  life  shall  vary  or  not.  We  can  only  choose 
the  dominant  moods.  If  we  turn  from  the  life 
of  faith,  we  have  at  most,  as  Browning  makes 
Bishop  Blougram  point  out,  substituted 

"A  life  of  doubt  diversified  by  faith 
For  one  of  faith  diversified  by  doubt. 
We  called  the  chess-board  white;    we  call  it  black." 


XXI 

THE  SPECIAL  BEARING  OF  LIMITATIONS  AND 
FLUCTUATIONS  ON  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

Thus  far,  in  our  consideration  of  the  inevit- 
able limitations  of  our  natures,  we  have  been 
considering  effects  which  are  not  peculiar  to  the 
spiritual  life,  but  which  are  essentially  the  same 
for  all  spheres  of  life.  We  turn  now  to  ask  in 
what  way  the  religious  life  is  peculiarly  affected 
by  these  limitations,  how  far  the  effects  in  the 
spiritual  life  differ  from  those  in  other  spheres. 

The  difference,  let  it  be  said  at  once,  certainly 
does  not  consist,  as  has  been  strangely  enough 
sometimes  suggested,  in  the  fact  that  the  re- 
ligious life  does  not  have  its  sense-manifesta- 
tions in  the  world.  Plutarch's  famous  passage 
concerning  the  omnipresence  of  temples  and 
altars  would  seem  to  indicate  that  these  mani- 
festations have  been  plain  enough.  The  reality 
of  the  religious  life  certainly  cannot  be  called 
in  question,  on  the  ground  that  it  has  not  in  the 
most  varied  and  multiplied  ways  bodied  itself 
forth  to  the  senses. 

Nevertheless,  our  inevitable  limitations  and 

fluctuations   undoubtedly   do   make   themselves 

131 


132      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

felt  with  peculiar  power  in  our  religious  think- 
ing and  living.  That  this  is  natural  appears  at 
once,  when  one  considers  the  greatness  of  the 
achievement  sought  to  be  made  in  the  religious 
life;  for  the  greater  the  task,  the  less  easy  must 
be  its  accomplishment. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  we  have  here  most 
clearly  the  finite  dealing  with  the  infinite  prob- 
lem. If  even  in  all  our  finite  inquiries  we  are 
burdened  with  the  sense  of  our  limitations, 
much  more  here,  where  we  are  avowedly  face 
to  face  with  the  question  of  the  Infinite  Life, 
must  we  feel  the  feebleness  of  our  powers.  And 
if,  even  in  the  inquiry  concerning  the  finite,  our 
conclusions  must  fall  short  of  demonstrative 
completeness,  plainly  must  we  be  content  in  the 
inquiry  after  the  Infinite  with  a  reasonable  faith. 

And  yet,  even  in  our  inquiries  into  the  finite, 
it  should  be  noted,  all  our  questions  ultimately 
seem  to  require  a  final  Unity,  that  is  more  than 
finite;  and  the  deepest  convictions  of  philos- 
ophy and  religion  seem  thus  necessary  to  make 
finally  consistent  our  proximate  conclusions.  In 
this  respect  our  lesser  problems  appear  really 
to  depend  for  their  complete  solution  upon  the 
greater. 

Again,  our  limitations  may  naturally  affect 
us  more  strongly  in  the  religious  life,  because 


BEARING    OF    LIMITATIONS    AND    FLUCTUATIONS      1 33 

the  grounds  of  our  great  spiritual  convictions 
must  lie  deeper  than  those  of  less  significant 
opinions.  The  very  fact  that  the  reasons  for 
spiritual  life  and  conviction  do  not  lie  on  the 
surface,  but  are  deeply  intertwined  with  the  very 
roots  of  our  being  and  with  the  different  sides 
of  our  nature,  particularly  the  ethical — and  if 
they  have  any  real  justification,  this  must  be 
true — makes  these  reasons  for  spiritual  life  and 
faith  all  the  less  capable  of  quick  and  easy  state- 
ment and  appreciation;  and  so  our  limitations 
will  be  especially  felt  just  here. 

Moreover,  just  because  the  religious  life  is 
so  closely  knit  up  with  the  ethical,  the  sense  of 
its  reality  is  peculiarly  subject  to  fluctuation.  In 
truth,  the  sense  of  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  life 
depends,  to  a  degree  true  of  no  other  sphere  of 
life,  upon  the  ethical  attitude.  Religious  con- 
victions, therefore,  are  unusually  sensitive  to 
one's  moral  changes.  This  is,  of  course,  true  in 
part  in  other  spheres  of  life,  on  account  of  the 
very  unity  of  our  being,  but  by  no  means  to  the 
same  extent.  Here,  then,  is  a  special  reason 
why  fluctuation  occurs  in  religious  convictions. 
We  cannot  cut  this  bond  of  connection  between 
religious  conviction  and  moral  attitude,  but  we 
can  change  our  moral  attitude;  and  just  so  far 
this  cause  of  fluctuation  belongs  with  the  remov- 


134     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

able  causes.  The  more  stably  right  our  ethical 
spirit  is,  the  more  permanent  is  our  religious 
faith.  I  assume  here,  of  course,  the  justification 
of  the  ethical. 

For  all  these  reasons,  the  spiritual  life  must 
be  preeminently  a  life  of  gradual  growth  and 
patient,  steady  endeavor.  The  greatest  things 
need  time,  patience,  study,  a  wise  use  of  moods, 
and  persistent  earnestness.  The  maintenance  of 
any  of  our  ideals  demands  some  fighting;  but 
the  true  man  cannot  be  willing,  either  for  him- 
self or  for  others,  to  draw  away  from  these 
fighting  forces — fighting  to  maintain  the  highest 
ideals  and  faith  in  them.  George  MacDonald's 
rector  in  the  "Quiet  Neighborhood"  says  to  his 
doubting,  listless  friend,  "You  know  the  'Faery 
Queen.'  Think  how  long  the  Red-Cross  Knight 
traveled  with  the  Lady  Truth — Una,  you  know 
— without  learning  to  believe  in  her;  and  how 
much  longer  still  without  ever  seeing  her  face. 
For  my  part  may  God  give  me  strength  to 
follow  till  I  die.  Only  I  will  venture  to  say 
this,  that  it  is  not  by  any  agony  of  the  intellect, 
that  I  expect  to  discover  her." 

Browning's  "Childe  Roland"  has  a  different 
meaning,  I  suppose,  for  every  mind  that  reads 
it;  but  for  me  it  seems  always  to  contain  a 
marvellous  allegory  of  the  dauntless  spirit  that 


BEARING    OF    LIMITATIONS    AND    FLUCTUATIONS      135 

may  well  characterize  the  soul  in  its  quest  for 
spiritual  truth  and  life.  An  end  set  and  pur- 
sued; an  end  pursued  after  enthusiasm,  confi- 
dence, hope  had  died;  pursued  after  companions 
had  been  defeated  and  had  perished;  pursued 
still  alone  when 

"just  to  fail  as  they,  seemed  best, 
And  all  the   doubt  was  now — should  I  be   fit?" 

yet  pursued  in  darkness,  foreboding,  doubt;  pur- 
sued across  that  dismal  ill-omened  waste  whose 
first  glimpse  brings  the  shudder  of  utter  loneli- 
ness, and  where  the  unending  ugliness  of  nature 
conspires  with  the  temptations  within  to  drive 
him  back;  pursued  in  spite  of  the  deadly  horrors 
of  the  way,  in  spite  of  those  last  terrors  that 
would  cheat  of  the  prize  within  his  grasp,  in 
spite  even  of  the  devil-suggested  doubt — Why 
should  he  hope  to  conquer,  where  so  many 
worthy  had  failed;  in  spite  of  all,  to  the  very 
last,  pursued! 

''Dauntless  the  slug-horn  to  my  lips  I  set 

And  blew  'Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark  Tower  came.'" 


XXII 

THE  WITNESS  OF  OUR  CONSCIOUSLY  BEST 

HOURS 

This  close  connection  of  the  religious  and  the 
ethical  leads  us  to  emphasize  the  important 
principle  that,  when  we  find  fluctuations  in  our 
convictions  concerning  the  reality  of  anything, 
we  must  ask  for  the  witness  of  our  consciously 
best  hours,  physically,  intellectually,  and  mor- 
ally. If  religious  conviction  does  tend  to  go  up 
and  down  with  our  moral  attitude,  and  the 
ethical  has  any  real  justification,  then  our  re- 
ligious convictions  are  just  so  far  confirmed. 
And,  with  reference  to  the  entire  man,  it  be- 
hooves us  to  ask,  When  does  the  spiritual  world 
seem  most  real  to  us?  in  our  best  or  our  worst 
moments?  when  we  are  consciously  most  in 
possession  of  ourselves  in  every  way,  or  when 
we  are  consciously  below  our  best?  So  Tyn- 
dall,  for  example,  tested  the  doctrine  of  ma- 
terial atheism:  "I  have  noticed,"  he  said, 
"during  years  of  self-observation,  that  it  is 
not  in  hours  of  clearness  and  vigor  that  this 
doctrine  commends  itself  to  my  mind."1 

1  Quoted  by  Orr,  The  Christian  View  of  God  and  the  World,  p.  74. 

136 


WITNESS   OF  OUR  CONSCIOUSLY    BEST   HOURS  137 

So  far,  now,  as  we  can  control  the  conditions — 
bodily,  intellectual,  and  moral — of  our  best 
hours,  the  ideal  world  may  be  truly  said  to  exist 
for  us  in  the  proportion  in  which  we  make  it 
to  exist.  And  to  just  that  extent,  the  fluctua- 
tion in  our  sense  of  the  reality  of  the  spiritual 
life  may  be  ascribed  to  removable  causes,  already 
considered.  But  so  far  as  our  sense  of  the 
reality  of  the  spiritual  life  is  affected  by  limi- 
tations inevitably  involved  in  our  finiteness,  or 
by  fluctuations  in  our  mental  states  due  to  con- 
stitutional conditions  and  connections  but  very 
partially  subject  to  our  control,  the  causes  are 
not  removable,  but  they  are  recognizable.  And 
to  see  that  the  wavering  sense  of  spiritual 
reality  is  due,  not  to  any  lack  of  realness  in  the 
spiritual  world,  but  only  to  changing  conditions 
in  ourselves,  is  to  be  delivered  from  many 
doubts  and  fears,  and  to  take  a  long  step  toward 
a  confident  religious  faith.  When  Kant  found 
that  a  constant  feeling  of  depression  whicb 
attended  him  had  its  cause  in  the  abnormal 
narrowness  of  his  chest,  he  could  not  throw  off 
the  physical  feeling,  but  he  could  keep  it  from 
shadowing  his  life.  So,  we  need  constantly  to 
take  account  of  our  necessary  finite  limitations 
and  the  inevitable  fluctuations  of  our  life,  if  we 
are  to  keep  our  religious  faith  clear  and  strong. 


I38      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

The  very  fact,  that  these  unremovable  causes 
of  the  sense  of  the  unreality  of  the  spiritual 
life  are  to  be  found  in  our  natural  constitu- 
tion, suggests  that  it  may  not  be  intended  that 
the  spiritual  life  should  always  seem  to  us 
equally  real  and  commanding.  And  if  we  press 
the  inquiry,  Why  should  this  be  intended?  it 
seems  possible  to  suggest  but  one  answer  con- 
sonant with  a  genuine  religious  faith:  it  must 
be  needed  as  a  part  of  our  moral  and  spiritual 
training.  We  are  brought,  thus,  to  consider 
the  last  of  the  causes  of  the  seeming  unreality 
of  the  spiritual  life. 


A  PURPOSED  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF 
THE  SPIRITUAL 


XXIII 

THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  A  LARGE  FACTOR 
IN  OUR  MORAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  TRAINING 

This  would  mean  the  recognition  that,  be- 
sides all  the  causes  with  which  we  have  been 
dealing — manifold  misconceptions,  failure  to 
fulfil  the  natural  conditions,  and  inevitable 
limitations  and  fluctuations — there  is  another, — 
a  certain  purpose,  involved  in  the  very  consti- 
tution of  ourselves  and  of  the  world,  that  the 
reality  of  the  spiritual  life  shall  not  be  a  mere 
brute  fact  to  be  passively  grasped  once  for  all, 
but  a  living  deed,  requiring  ever  to  be  pur- 
posely renewed.  For  the  sake,  then,  of  our 
moral  and  spiritual  training,  for  the  sake  of 
deepening  the  spiritual  life  itself  into  which 
the  moral  is  so  inextricably  woven,  there  is  a 
purposed  seeming  unreality  in  spiritual  things. 

Even  here,  where  we  could  least  expect  it,  it 

is  to  be  noted  that  there  is  still  a  real  similarity 

between  the  spiritual  life  and  the  other  spheres 

of  life.     For  it  is  the  distinctive  mark  of  man, 

as  Browning  is  so  fond  of  insisting,  that  he  is 

a  growing  creature.    And  this  appears  on  every 

side  of  his  life. 

141 


142      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

Nowhere  is  anything  done  fully  to  man's 
hand.  He  is  no  "finished  and  finite  clod."  He 
has  no  "finished  instincts."  Everywhere  he 
must  work  out  his  task.  His.  science,  even,  is 
the  work  of  ages,  toilsomely  wrought  out  by 
countless  contributors,  and  is  a  task  always  only 
in  the  making.  As  an*  intellectual  product  it 
cannot  be  inherited,  and  it  is  consciously  shared 
in,  as  Lotze  notes,  by  very  few;  for  no  man 
can  passively  receive  it.  It  is  a  kingdom  to  be 
conquered.  So  throughout  our  lives,  the  best 
must  ever  be  wrought  out. 

All  the  conditions  of  our  life,  too,  seem  ad- 
justed to  this  thought  of  an  imperfect,  growing 
creature.  The  almost  unbelievable  extent  to 
which  life  everywhere  calls  for  the  repetition 
of  acts  is  evidence.  The  proverbs  of  all  nations 
bear  witness.  The  enormous  place  and  power 
of  habit  point  to  the  same  conclusion.  The 
way  in  which  the  most  fundamental  qualities 
of  character  require  for  their  development 
steady  submission  to  the  daily  drudgery,  is  par- 
ticularly significant.  There  is  evidently  no 
intention,  in  the  constitution  of  the  world  or  of 
men,  to  bring  men  to  any  high  attainment,  except 
by  strenuous  endeavor  on  their  own  part.  We 
need  not  think  it  strange,  then,  that  in  the 
highest  life  of  all,  even  its  reality  should  be 


OUR  MORAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  TRAINING  1 43 

made  to  depend  in  no  small  degree  on  our 
constant  struggle. 

But  the  fact  that  points  most  unmistakably 
to  the  seeming  unreality  of  the  spiritual  world 
as  an  intended  part  of  our  moral  and  spiritual 
training,  is  that  very  closely  connected  deficiency 
in  moral  insight  which  is  not  without  its  moral 
advantage.  In  Lotze's  words:  "It  would  not 
be  advantageous  for  moral  development  if  the 
binding  truth  of  all  particular  moral  com- 
mands, and  the  indissoluble  connection  between 
them,  were  presented  to  individual  minds  with 
the  theoretical  certainty  of  an  arithmetical  proof, 
and  if  it  were  not  left  for  every  soul  to  fight 
its  way  through  the  battle  of  life,  by  living, 
believing  action  and  effort,  to  this  clearness  of 
comprehensive  moral  intuition."1 

The  constant  p'ower  and  attraction  of  a  re- 
peated temptation,  the  hollowness  of  which  we 
think  we  have  already  fully  discovered,  seem, 
thus,  to  indicate  a  certain  intended  deficiency  in 
moral  insight.  We  are  not  to  be  spared  the 
needed  struggle.  We  are  to  keep  striving.  We 
come  into  character  only  so.  Our  ethical  pur- 
pose must  be  constantly  reaffirmed  in  active  resis- 
tance to  temptations  ever  renewed.  A  moral 
insight,  that  should  rob  the  temptations  of  all 

1  Microcosmus,  Vol.  II,  p.  54. 


144     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

power,  would  take  from  us  the  very  struggle 
needed  for  our  moral  growth.  In  this  prelimin- 
ary stage  of  our  training  in  the  earthly  life,  at 
least,  our  best  growth  comes  only  so.  And  life 
becomes  thus  everywhere  "a  godlike  challenge  in 
the  night  to  our  too  reluctant  wills." 

If  this  is  true  in  the  purely  ethical  life,  we 
need  not  wonder  that  in  the  religious  life  also, 
with  which  the  ethical  is  so  completely  bound 
up,  there  are  intended  conditions  which  con- 
tinually compel  a  reaffirming  of  the  spiritual, 
if  it  is  to  be  held  at  all.  Even  the  removable 
causes  of  spiritual  unreality — manifold  miscon- 
ceptions and  failure  to  fulfil  natural  conditions 
— and  the  necessary  recognition  of  the  unremov- 
able limitations  and  fluctuations, — even  these, 
as  we  have  seen,  demand  a  persistent,  thoughtful 
pursuit  of  the  spiritual.  But  if  to  these  is  to 
be  added  a  purposed  seeming  unreality,  there 
is  here  brought  to  us  a  definite  challenge  to 
conquer  a  spiritual  kingdom  for  ourselves. 

This  point  is  of  such  central  importance  that 
there  may  well  be  added  upon  it  these  words 
of  Professor  Seth  Pattison:1  "If  we  are  really 
in  earnest,  at  once  with  the  unity  of  the  world 
and  with  the  necessity  of  an  intrinsically  worthy 
end  by   reference  to  which   existence  may  be 

1  Man's  Place  in  the  Cosmos,  pp.  32-33. 


OUR  MORAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  TRAINING  1 45 

explained,  we  must  take  our  courage  in  both 
hands  and  carry  our  convictions  to  their  legiti- 
mate conclusion.  We  must  conclude  that  the 
end  which  we  recognize  as  alone  worthy  of 
attainment  is  also  the  end  of  existence  as  such — 
the  open  secret  of  the  universe.  No  man  writes 
more  pessimistically  than  Kant  of  man's  relation 
to  the  course  of  nature,  so  long  as  man  is  re- 
garded merely  as  a  sentient  creature,  susceptible 
to  pleasure  and  pain.  But  man,  as  the  subject  of 
duty,  and  the  heir  of  immortal  hopes,  is  restored 
by  Kant  to  that  central  position  in  the  universe 
from  which,  as  a  merely  physical  being,  Coper- 
nicus had  degraded  him. 

"To  a  certain  extent  this  conclusion  must  re- 
main a  conviction  rather  than  a  demonstration, 
for  we  cannot  emerge  altogether  from  the  ob- 
scurities of  our  middle  state,  and  there  is  much 
that  may  rightly  disquiet  and  perplex  our  minds. 
But  if  it  is  in  the  needs  of  the  moral  life  that 
we  find  our  deepest  principle  of  explanation, 
then  it  may  be  argued  with  some  reason  that 
this  belongs  to  the  nature  of  the  case;  for  a 
scientific  demonstration  would  not  serve  the 
purposes  of  that  life.  The  truly  good  man  must 
choose  goodness  on  its  own  account;  he  must 
be    ready   to   serve    God    for    naught,    without 

being  invaded  by  M.  Renan's  doubts.    As  it  has 
10 


I46     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

been  finely  put,  he  must  possess  'that  rude  old 
Norse  nobility  of  soul,  which  saw  virtue  and 
vice  alike  go  unrewarded,  and  was  yet  not 
shaken  in  its  faith.'  ....  But  because  such  is 
the  temper  of  true  virtue,  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  such  virtue  will  not  be  rewarded  with 
kthe  wages  of  going  on,  and  not  to  die.'  " 

In  all  this,  the  conditions  of  the  religious  life 
show  a  real  similarity  to  those  of  the  rest  of 
life.  But  there  is  a  certain  difference  in  this 
purposed  unreality,  now  to  be  observed. 


XXIV 

THE  SPECIAL  RELIGIOUS  NEED  OF  THE  UN- 
OBTRUSIVENESS  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL 

The  chief  difference,  no  doubt,  consists  in  the 
fact  that,  in  the  religious  life,  we  are  dealing 
with  the  most  fundamental  of  all  relations — 
the  relation  to  God,  which,  we  have  already- 
seen,  has  a  universality  all  its  own.  Even  the 
ethical  life,  therefore,  so  far  as  it  is  conceived 
as  independent  of  the  religious,  has  no  such 
sweep  as  the  religious  life.  And  if  the  ethical 
demanded  the  training  of  a  constantly  com- 
pelled struggle,  this,  much  more.  To  come  into 
any  worthy  personal  relation  to  a  God,  right 
relation  to  whom  involves  right  relation  to  all 
others  and  to  all  else,  is  no  holiday  task.  It 
calls  for  a  girding  up  of  the  loins  of  our  minds. 
"Self-renunciation,"  a  Kempis  reminds  us,  "is 
not  the  work  of  one  day,  nor  children's  sport." 

Moreover,  the  simple  fact  that  in  the  religious 
life  we  have  to  deal  with  an  unseen  God,  so 
unobtrusive  as  to  seem  almost  deliberately  to 
hide  his  working,  gives  to  the  conditions  of  the 
religious  life  some   real  difference.     Here  we 

have  not  only  to  maintain  ourselves  in  a  spirit- 

147 


1 48      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  TH E  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

ual  world,  plainly  given  as  a  fact,  but  we  have 
almost  to  maintain  the  reality  of  that  world 
itself.  We  must  create,  in  some  real  sense,  not 
only  our  moral  spirit,  but  also  the  very  realm 
in  which  that  spirit  is  to  be  shown.  The  very 
existence  for  us  of  the  spiritual  world,  that  is, 
seems  in  no  small  measure  committed  to  our 
trust.  Day  by  day  we  are  to  assure  ourselves 
anew:  There  is  a  God;  he  does  love;  man  is 
free;  man  is  immortal;  this  life  is  not  all; 
there  is  a  growing,  all-embracing  Kingdom  of 
God.  That  religion  has  in  all  this  a  task  some- 
what, though  not  wholly,  peculiar,  will  hardly 
be  denied. 

But  the  difference  just  noted,  like  the  first 
difference,  evidently  makes  a  supreme  demand 
upon  the  ethical  purpose.  And  the  contrast 
between  the  conditions  of  the  religious  life  and 
those  of  all  the  rest  of  life,  except  the  ethical, 
as  to  the  intended  obscurity  with  which  we  have 
to  deal,  lies  exactly  in  this  inseparableness  of 
the  religious  and  the  ethical.  The  ethical  spirit 
is  absolutely  essential  to  the  true  religious  life. 
There  must,  therefore,  be  emphasized  in  every 
possible  way  in  the  religious  life  that  which  will 
morally  train;  and  the  merely  formal,  per- 
functory, or  imitated  must  be  sternly  eliminated. 
If  there  is  a  God  at  all,  who  really  intends  to 


NEED   OF    UNOBTRUSIVENESS   OF   THE    SPIRITUAL      149 

bring  us  to  the  highest  life,  we  may  confidently 
expect  that  the  conditions  of  our  life  will  be  so 
shaped  as  to  call  out  in  us  the  persistent  ethical 
will.  In  Herrmann's  words,1  "We  are  to  seek 
communion  with  God,  not  as  something  along- 
side of  devotion  to  what  is  good,  but  only  in 
this  devotion." 

Above  all  else,  this  means  that  the  conditions 
must  be  such  that  the  religious  life  may  be  the 
man's  own,  voluntarily  chosen  and  voluntarily 
kept.  If  this  is  to  be  true,  a  sacred  reverence 
for  the  human  personality  must  be  a  controlling 
principle  in  all  God's  dealing  with  us.  Man's 
freedom  will  be  respected,  and  his  individuality 
respected.  There  will  be  no  over-riding  of 
either  in  any  way.  This  implies  that,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  it  is  impossible  that  there 
should  be  any  forcing  of  God  and  the  spiritual 
life  upon  a  man.  They  must  become  his  own, 
by  voluntary  recognition,  by  persistent  choosing. 
Only  so  can  he  keep  his  spiritual  life  and  grow 
in  it. 

And  if  there  is  to  be  no  forcing  of  God  and 
the  spiritual  world  upon  a  man,  this  would 
seem  to  mean  further,  that  we  can  expect  no 
absolutely  incontrovertible  evidences,  no  over- 
powering signs — certainly  not  before  the  ethical 

1  Communion  ivit/i  God,  p.  206. 


150     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

choice.  A  choice  will  be  left,  some  room  for 
our  own  attitude  of  will  to  have  its  effect.  It  is 
this  principle  that  Pascal  seems  to  have  in  mind 
when  he  says:1  "God  wished  to  render  him- 
self perfectly  recognizable  to  those  who  seek 
him  with  their  whole  heart;  and  hidden  from 
those  who  shun  him  with  all  their  heart."  "Re- 
ligion is  a  thing  so  great,  that  it  is  just  that  those 
who  would  not  take  the  pains  to  seek  it,  if  it  is 
obscure,  should  be  deprived  of  it.  What  do 
they  complain  of  then,  if  it  is  such  that  they 
could  find  it  by  seeking  it?"  And  he  intimates 
how  this  obscurity  becomes  a  moral  test:  "If 
you  care  but  little  to  know  the  truth,  here  [in 
a  suggested  difficulty]  is  enough  to  leave  you  in 
repose.  But  if  you  desire  with  all  your  heart 
to  know  the  truth,  it  is  not  enough,  examine 
minutely." 

Wherever,  then,  we  ask  in  the  spiritual  life 
for  incontrovertible  evidence,  we  ask  not  only 
for  that  which  transcends  our  limitations,  but 
for  that  which  on  moral  grounds  also  is  not  to 
be  granted;  we  ask  that  the  conditions  of  our 
life  should  be  less  perfectly  adapted  than  they 
now  are  to  our  highest  moral  and  spiritual  needs. 
The  seeming  unreality  of  the  spiritual  world 
becomes  itself,  thus,  a  ground  of  trust. 

1  Thoughts  and  Letters,  pp,  327,  355. 


NEED   OF    UNOBTRUSIVENESS   OF   THE    SPIRITUAL      151 

But  even  more  than  this  is  to  be  said.  Our 
moral  need  seems  plainly  to  require,  also,  that 
there  shall  be  no  domination  of  the  human  per- 
sonality by  God's  personality.  Not  only  will 
God  not  thrust  the  fact  of  his  existence  upon 
us  in  resistless  fashion,  whatever  our  moral  atti- 
tude, but  in  his  personal  relation  to  us,  even 
after  we  have  voluntarily  and  gladly  recognized 
it,  he  will  still  sacredly  respect  our  own  moral 
initiative  and  our  own  individuality.  Because 
he  would  bring  us  to  real  character  and  to  a 
spiritual  experience  of  our  own,  he  will  jealously 
guard  his  action,  hiding  his  hand  in  his  dealing 
with  us,  not  putting  upon  us  the  practically 
irresistible  pressure  of  over-powering  person- 
ality. If  even  the  parent  and  elder  friend  need 
to  take  pains  not  to  dominate  with  their  per- 
sonalities the  growing  personality  of  the  child, 
much  more  must  the  Infinite  Personality  guard 
the  manifestations  of  himself.  The  very  possi- 
bility of  unmistakably  genuine  character  in  finite 
beings  seems  to  depend  upon  the  fact  that  God 
should,  thus,  at  least  in  the  preliminary  stages 
of  their  training,  scrupulously  remain  the  in- 
demonstrable, the  invisible,  the  hidden,  the 
unobtrusive  God,  showing  such  a  reverence  for 
the  personality  of  his  children  as  men  never 
show  for  one  another. 


152     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

Kant  clearly  recognizes  this  imperative  need 
of  the  hidden  God,  and  his  own  careful  state- 
ment deserves  quotation:1  Else  uGod  and  eter- 
nity with  their  awful  majesty  would  stand  un- 
ceasingly before  our  eyes,  (for  what  we  can 
prove  perfectly  is  to  us  as  certain  as  that  of 
which  we  are  assured  by  the  sight  of  our  eyes). 
Transgression  of  the  law  would  no  doubt  be 
avoided,  what  is  commanded  would  be  done; 
but  the  mental  disposition,  from  which  actions 
ought  to  proceed,  cannot  be  infused  by  any 
command,  and  in  this  case  the  spur  of  action  is 
ever  active  and  external,  so  that  reason  has  no 
need  to  exert  itself  in  order  to  gather  strength  to 
resist  the  inclinations  by  a  lively  representation 
of  the  dignity  of  the  law:  hence  most  of  the 
actions  that  conformed  to  the  law  would  be  done 
from  fear,  a  few  only  from  hope,  and  none  at 
all  from  duty,  and  the  moral  worth  of  actions, 
on  which  alone  in  the  eyes  of  supreme  wisdom 
the  worth  of  the  person  and  even  that  of  the 
world  depends,  would  cease  to  exist.  As  long 
as  the  nature  of  man  remains  what  it  is,  his  con- 
duct would  thus  be  changed  into  mere  mech- 
anism, in  which,  as  in  a  puppet  show,  every- 
thing would  gesticulate  well,  but  there  would  be 

1   Dialectic  of  Pure  Practical  Reason.     Abbott:    Kant's  Theory  of 
Ethics,  pp.  357-358- 


NEED   OF    UNOBTRUSIVENESS   OF   THE    SPIRITUAL     1 53 

no  life  in  the  figures.  Now,  when  it  is  quite 
otherwise  with  us,  when  with  all  the  effort  of 
our  reason  we  have  only  a  very  obscure  and 
doubtful  view  into  the  future,  when  the  Gover- 
nor of  the  world  allows  us  only  to  conjecture 
his  existence  and  his  majesty,  not  to  behold  them 
or  prove  them  clearly;  and  on  the  other  hand, 
the  moral  law  within  us,  without  promising  or 
threatening  anything  with  certainty,  demands 
of  us  disinterested  respect;  and  only  when  this 
respect  has  become  active  and  dominant,  does 
it  allow  us  by  means  of  it  a  prospect  into  the 
world  of  the  super-sensible,  and  then  only  with 
weak  glances:  all  this  being  so,  there  is  room 
for  true  moral  disposition,  immediately  devoted 
to  the  law,  and  a  rational  creature  can  become 
worthy  of  sharing  in  the  siimmum  bonum  that 
corresponds  to  the  worth  of  his  person  and  not 
merely  to  his  actions.  Thus  what  the  study  of 
nature  and  of  man  teaches  us  sufficiently  else- 
where may  well  be  true  here  also;  that  the 
unsearchable  wisdom  by  which  we  exist  is  not 
less  worthy  of  admiration  in  what  it  has  denied 
than  in  what  it  has  granted." 

It  is  not  strange,  then,  after  all,  that  the 
spiritual  life  meets  us  constantly  with  the  para- 
doxical demand  that  we  should  in  some  real 
sense  create  the  objects  of  our  faith,  as  well  as 


154      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

act  in  view  of  them.  So  Kant  felt  as  to  God 
and  freedom  and  immortality.  So  Fichte  af- 
firmed as  to  the  entire  world  of  the  spirit.  So 
James  has  asserted  most  strongly  as  to  freedom. 
So  Browning  and  many  another  has  believed 
as  to  the  love  of  God  and  all  that  that  involves. 
Religion  is  a  deed.  And,  in  a  very  real  sense, 
we  are  left  to  determine  whether  for  us  there 
shall  be  a  God,  and  a  loving  God,  a  freedom, 
an  immortality,  a  future  world,  a  Kingdom  of 
God.  God  has  intended  that  the  conditions  of 
our  life  should  be  such  as  to  challenge  us  at 
every  point  to  a  stalwart  faith  and  a  stalwart 
life.  As  Browning  says,  thinking  of  the  central 
truth  of  all — the  love  of  God,  and  his  supreme 
historical  revelation  in  Christ: 

"So  duly,  daily,  needs  provision  be 
For  keeping  the   soul's  prowess   possible, 
Building  new  barriers  as  the  old   decay, 
Saving  us  from  evasion  of  life's  proof, 
Putting  the  question  ever,  'Does  God  love, 
And  will  ye  hold  that  truth  against  the  world?'" 

And  it  is  impossible  to  let  this  truth,  of  which 
we  are  now  speaking,  get  full  possession  of  us, 
and  not  find  a  great  new  light  thrown  on 
the  whole  dark  problem  of  evil — our  greatest 
natural  obstacle  to  a  satisfying  religious  faith. 
Seeing  how  much  is  at  stake  in  this  reverent 
guarding,  at  any  cost,  of  our  moral  initiative 


NEED  OF    UNOBTRUSIVENESS   OF   THE    SPIRITUAL     1 55 

and  of  our  individuality,  we  learn  not  to  expect 
God  to  interfere,  even  when  great  evils  threaten. 
The  greatest  evil,  after  all,  would  be  that  the  con- 
ditions of  genuine  character  should  fail.  We 
come  even  to  rejoice  that  we  live,  in  this  time 
of  our  preliminary  training,  in  a  world  in 
which  the  rewards  of  virtue  do  not  seem  to 
follow  either  immediately  or  certainly.  The 
natural  and  inevitable  doubt  which  underlies 
for  every  man  "the  problem  of  evil"  becomes, 
in  the  light  of  this  far  reaching  principle  of 
reverence  for  personality,  itself  a  cause  of  thanks- 
giving; for  it  insures  that  our  righteous  choices 
shall  not  be  selfishly  motived.  We  are  glad  that 
the  genuinely  unselfish  choice  seems  so  often 
to  cut  right  athwart  our  own  interests;  for  it 
means  that  our  wills  are  not  over-ridden. 
The  very  existence  of  the  problem  of  evil  makes 
possible  our  belief  in  the  genuineness  of  the 
character  of  ourselves  and  of  others.  It  is  a 
heavy  price  that  is  thus  paid,  no  doubt;  but  it 
is  not  too  heavy  for  the  priceless  interests  so 
guarded. 

We  have  to  recognize,  on  the  part  of  God, 
then,  something  like  a  really  purposed  obscur- 
ing of  the  spiritual  world.  The  seeming  un- 
reality of  the  spiritual  life  is  a  chief  part  of 
our  moral  and  spiritual  training. 


XXV 

OUR  VERY  QUESTIONINGS  A  PROOF  OF 

REALITY 

But,  with  reference  to  all  these  unremovable 
causes  of  the  seeming  unreality  of  the  spiritual 
life,  we  should  not  fail  to  notice  that  our  very 
questionings  here  are  an  evidence  of  reality. 
It  is  hard  to  see  how  else  the  questions  could 
arise  at  all. 

In  the  question  of  freedom,  for  example,  if 
the  mind  were  wholly  determined,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  the  very  notion  of  freedom  should 
arise  at  all;  or  if  the  ideas,  which  compose  it, 
be  conceived  somehow  to  have  arisen,  it  is  still 
more  difficult  to  see  how  it  could  mean  any- 
thing to  a  mind  that  did  not  already  know  free- 
dom in  its  own  experience.  I  confess  myself 
quite  dissatisfied  with  the  ordinary  facile  psycho- 
logical geneses  of  the  conviction  of  freedom. 
They  seem  to  me  only  another  great  example 
of  the  ever-besetting  "psychologist's  fallacy." 
The  simple  fact,  that  with  any  intelligence  I 
can  raise  the  question  of  freedom,  that  I  can 
give  any  meaning  to  it  satisfying  even  to  my 
own  mind, — this  alone  seems  to  me  good  evi- 
dence of  the  fact  of  freedom.    The  question  is 

156 


OUR  VERY  QUESTIONINGS  A  PROOF  OF  REALITY         I  57 

itself  explicable,  only  upon  the  presupposition 
of  the  fact. 

So,  too,  in  the  question  of  immortality,  is  not 
Emerson  right  in  maintaining  that  the  perennial 
interest  with  which  men  perpetually  return  to 
this  problem,  is  itself  better  evidence  of  the 
reality  of  the  future  life  than  any  proofs  which 
they  might  discover?  If  we  were  mere  crea- 
tures of  the  day,  complete  kindred  of  animals, 
it  is  hard  to  see  how  this  question  of  the  im- 
mortal life  should  come  so  to  press  upon  us. 
Is  it  not  the  stirring  within  us  of  our  own 
birthright,  that  prompts  the  questioning?  Is  it 
a  false  response  that  men  have  made,  these 
years  since  Wordsworth  wrote,  to  his  "intima- 
tions of  immortality"?  Are  questionings,  in 
truth,  no  evidence  here?  Does  not,  rather,  the 
note  of  satiety,  unrest,  disillusion,  and  final 
despair,  which  inevitably  shows  itself  in  all 
poetry  that  reflects  any  thorough-going  attempt 
on  the  part  of  man  to  find  his  entire  satisfac- 
tion in  the  flesh,  bear  unmistakable  testimony 
to  the  fact  that  man  is  more  than  animal?1 

So,  once  more,  the  very  existence  of  the 
problem  of  evil  in  practically  all  minds  points 
to  its  own  solution.    For  the  question  could  not 

1  Cf.  Paul  E.  More:  "The  Poetry  of  Arthur  Symonds,"  The  In- 
dependent, April    17,    1902. 


158      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

arise  in  all  minds,  except  upon  the  assumption 
in  all  that,  in  a  world  that  ought  to  be,  happi- 
ness and  virtue  would  fall  together.  But  in  this 
common  assumption  made  by  all  minds,  as 
demanded  by  their  very  constitutions,  must  we 
not  see  an  unmistakable  self-expression  of  that 
power  that  lies  back  of  the  universe,  and, 
therefore,  an  implicit  answer  to  our  own  doubt, — 
a  virtual  pledge  that  finally,  at  least,  that  shall 
be  which  is  here  demanded? 

A  similar  thing  is  to  be  said  even  with 
reference  to  the  question  of  the  existence  and 
love  of  God.  Unless  man  is  by  his  very  nature 
religious,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  primal 
religious  question  could  even  arise.  The  simple 
fact  that  the  question  is  one  of  never-dying 
interest  to  man,  that  he  persistently  recurs  to  it 
in  his  highest  moments,  and  unconsciously  as- 
sumes it  in  his  deepest  experiences  and  even  in 
his  commonest  activities — the  mere  fact  that 
he  so  questions  as  concerning  an  absolutely  vital 
interest,  is  itself  strong  evidence  of  the  reality 
of  that  questioned.  Thus  "Physicus,"  in  the  very 
act  of  renouncing  all  religious  faith,  says,  as  if 
it  were  a  matter  of  course,  "I  am  confident 
that  truth  must  in  the  end  be  most  profitable 
for  the  race;"  thus  unconsciously  still  betraying 
a  fundamentally  religious  belief. 


OUR  VERY  QUESTIONINGS  A  PROOF  OF  REALITY         1 59 

Here,  too,  the  persistent,  unconscious  show- 
ings of  the  nature  of  men  must  be  taken  as  self- 
expressions  of  that  Absolute  which  is  back  of 
all,  and  so  evidence  of  such  a  God  as  the  soul 
seeks.  A  thoughtful  modern  novelist  thus  con- 
cludes one  of  her  stories:  "Full  assurance  has 
not  been  granted  me,  and  it  is  my  lot  in  doing 
battle  to  strike  often  in  the  dark.  Yet  I  have 
moments  when  I  know  that  the  strife  is  not  in 
vain.  In  these  I  wonder  why  we  are  so  troubled 
about  our  duty  to  our  fellow-man,  and  about 
our  knowledge  of  God.  The  one  command  in 
regard  to  our  neighbor  is  not  obscure.  And 
our  foreboding  lest  our  faith  in  God  shall 
escape  us  seems  futile,  inasmuch  as  we  cannot 
escape  from  our  faith."  One  can  hardly  deny 
the  force  of  this  consideration,  without  calling 
in  question  that  fundamental  assumption  of  all 
our  thinking  and  living — the  honesty  of  the 
world.  When  this  is  denied,  all  thinking, 
scientific,  philosophical,  or  religious,  is  at  an 
end. 

"Rather    I    prize    the    doubt 
Low   kinds  exist  without. 
Finished  and  finite  clods,  untroubled  by  a  spark. 

Poor  vaunt  of  life   indeed, 
Were  man  but   formed  to  feed 
On  joy,  to  solely  seek  and  find  and   feast; 
Such  feasting  ended,  then 


l6o     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

As  sure  an  end  to  men; 
Irks  care  the  crop-full  bird  ?     Frets  doubt  the  maw- 
crammed   beast? 

Rejoice  we  are  allied 

To  That  which  doth   provide 
And  not  partake,  effect  and  not  receive! 

A  spark  disturbs  our  clod ; 

Nearer  we  hold  of  God 
Who  gives,  than  of  his  tribes  that  take,  I  must  believe. 

Then,  welcome  each  rebuff 

That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough, 
Each  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand,  but  go! 

Be  our  joys  three  parts  pain! 

Strive,   and   hold   cheap   the   strain; 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang;    dare,  never  grudge  the  throe! 

For  thence — a   paradox 

Which  comforts  while  it  mocks — 
Shall  life  succeed  in  that  it  seems  to  fail : 

What  I   aspired  to  be, 

And  was  not,  comforts  me: 
A  brute  I  might  have  been,  but  would  not  sink  i'  the 

scale." 


PART  II 
THE  WAY  INTO  REALITY 


ii 


THE  PRESUMPTIVE  EVIDENCE 


XXVI 

THE  TEST  OF  PRESENT  TRENDS   OF 
THOUGHT— HISTORICAL,  PHILO- 
SOPHICAL,  SCIENTIFIC,   ETH- 
ICAL, AND  SOCIAL 

We  shall  do  well  to  preface  our  positive 
discussion  of  the  way  into  reality  in  religious 
thought  and  life  by  a  brief  but  comprehensive 
survey  of  the  presumptive  evidence  of  the 
reality  and  significance  of  the  spiritual  life,  in 
view  of  its  connections  with  the  great  present 
trends  of  thought,  and  in  view  of  the  inevitably 
fundamental  nature  of  religion. 

If  the  spiritual  life  is  to  become  for  us  an 
assured  and  significant  reality,  it  must  seem  to 
us,  as  we  have  seen,  both  to  be  inextricably  knit 
up  with  all  else  that  we  count  most  real,  and 
also  to  have  its  own  distinct  and  valuable  con- 
tribution to  make  to  life.  Both  things  must  be 
true,  if  the  spiritual  life  is  to  become  for  us 
of  fundamental  importance.  This  chapter  and 
the  next  are  devoted  to  showing  briefly  how 
Christianity  meets  the  first  demand, — to  point- 
ing out  the  indissoluble  connection  of  the  Chris- 
tian thought  and  life  with  the  realest  trends  of 
our  own  times. 

165 


1 66     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

If  one  thinks,  then,  of  those  trends  of  thought 
which  are  realest  for  our  own  time,  and  seeks 
to  test  the  spiritual  life  by  them,  he  would  prob- 
ably have  to  say:  that  first,  religion  must  meet 
the  test  of  psychology;  secondly,  the  test  of  a 
social,  and  therefore  an  ethical  consciousness; 
and  that  would  mean,  in  the  third  place,  that 
the  spiritual  life  must  be  fully  awake  to  the 
reality  and  meaning  of  the  personal;  fourth, 
it  must  possess  a  scientific  sense  of  law  and 
unity;  and,  finally,  it  must  be  able,  as  well,  to 
meet  the  historical  and  philosophical  test. 

The  limits  of  this  book  do  not  permit  a  full 
treatment  of  any  of  these  different  tests;  but 
we  may  consider  briefly,  in  reverse  order,  their 
application  to  Christianity. 

Christianity,  then,  may  not  shrink  from  either 
a  historical  or  philosophical  investigation.  Least 
of  all,  in  a  scientific  age,  can  it  claim  the  right 
to  withdraw  itself  from  the  testing  of  long  ex- 
perience. And  the  Christian  religion  can  retain 
for  the  modern  man  its  full  significance  only 
if  it  can  meet  just  this  test.  And,  in  the  same 
way,  if  a  careful  historical  study  of  Christianity, 
as  it  manifests  itself  in  the  life  of  the  race,  side 
by  side  with  other  religions,  does  not  prove  the 
superiority  of  Christianity,  its  supreme  claims 
cannot  seem  to  us  ultimately  justified.     Inevit- 


THE  TEST  OF  PRESENT  TRENDS  OF  THOUGHT  1 67 

ably,  whether  it  will  or  not,  every  religion  is 
steadily  undergoing  such  a  test,  and  is  being 
tried  out  by  a  relentless  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  It  is  hardly 
open  to  doubt,  that,  so  tested,  the  teaching,  ideals, 
and  religion  of  Jesus  verify  themselves  to  an 
extent  scarcely  approached  by  any  other  point 
of  view. 

In  a  similar  sense,  Christianity  cannot  with- 
draw itself  from  philosophical  investigation. 
However  great  may  be  one's  sympathy  with 
many  of  Ritschl's  positives,  the  thoughtful  man 
can  hardly  deny  the  justice  of  Dr.  Bruce's 
criticism  of  Ritschl  because  of  his  refusal  to 
recognize  that  philosophy  has  any  legitimate 
task  in  the  realm  of  religion.  As  Dr.  Bruce 
says:  "The  horror  of  metaphysics  is  a  reaction 
to  be  transcended."  "The  Christian  religion 
implies  a  theory  of  the  universe."  "If  Christ's 
doctrine  is  true,  there  ought  to  be  something  in 
the  world  to  verify  it."  Quite  in  harmony  with 
this  criticism,  was  Professor  Everett's  belief  that 
the  mistake  of  the  Ritschlians  lay  in  separating 
wholly  from  philosophy,  from  the  great  move- 
ments of  history,  and  from  natural  religion. 

There  are  plain  dangers,  then,  in  a  view  that 
tries  to  withdraw  Christianity  from  the  philo- 
sophical test.    First,  there  is  the  danger  of  fail- 


1 68     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

ing  to  see  that  one  may  so  over-emphasize  the 
uniqueness  of  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ, 
as  to  take  it  out  of  its  connection  with  all  other 
reality,  and  so  tend  to  make  it  unreal.  A 
second  danger  is  that  of  underestimating  the 
revelation  of  God  in  our  own  natures.  These, 
too,  we  may  not  forget,  are,  upon  any  sane  view, 
from  God, — the  same  God  who  has  revealed  him- 
self in  Christ.  There  will  probably  be  some 
indication  of  this  identity  of  origin.  Chris- 
tianity must  fit  human  nature  and  the  whole 
man.  And  the  way  in  which  Christianity  fits 
man  must  finally  be  regarded  as  its  greatest 
proof,  and  must  even  underlie  our  belief  in 
Christ  himself. 

Still  another  danger  of  such  a  view  is  that 
it  should  fail  to  see  the  necessity  of  a  unified 
Christian  view  of  the  world.  If  the  Christian 
is  to  be  at  the  same  time  a  thinker,  he  cannot 
avoid  the  attempt  to  bring  the  different  sides 
of  his  experience  into  relation  to  each  other, 
and  into  a  final  unity.  It  is  quite  true  that  this 
philosophical  attempt  is  not  the  introduction  to 
religion,  and  is  not  its  foundation;  but  it  is  a 
needed  supplement  for,  at  least,  the  intellectual 
peace  of  even  the  individual  Christian  soul. 
And  so  long  as  this  need  of  an  ultimate  unity 
is   not  met,   the   Christian    religion   must   still 


THE  TEST  OF  PRESENT  TRENDS  OF  THOUGHT  1 69 

seem  in  some  degree  irrational  and  unreal ;  for 
it  will  not  seem  to  one  to  fit  the  world  as  he 
finds  it. 

The  believer  in  the  Christian  thought  and 
life,  therefore,  if  he  sees  things  aright,  must 
himself  desire  that  philosophy  should  freely 
apply  its  own  tests  to  Christianity,  though  he 
may  have  a  clear  sense  that  the  philosophical 
consideration  must  at  best  be  no  adequate  meas- 
ure of  the  whole  significance  of  religion.  The 
most  direct  proof  that  Christianity  does  not  fail 
to  meet  the  test  of  the  best  philosophical  thought 
of  our  time  is  found,  perhaps,  in  the  general 
acceptance  of  the  Christian  ethical  ideal,  and 
in  the  predominant  ethical  note  of  our  ablest 
philosophical  thinkers,  and  the  way  in  which 
they  make  even  metaphysics  root  in  ethics.  The 
significance,  even  for  philosophy,  of  the  great 
personalities  of  history  is  also  a  growing  con- 
viction. 

So,  too,  it  is  quite  impossible  for  one  to  belong 
to  the  present  generation  and  not  demand  that 
religion  shall  show,  from  the  scientific  point  of 
view,  some  sense  of  law  and  unity  in  the  spirit- 
ual life.  This  will  mean,  no  doubt,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  growing  recognition  of  the  imma- 
nence of  God,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  per- 
ception that  the  laws  of  the  spiritual  world  are 


I70     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

chiefly  the  laws  of  personal  relations.  On  the 
one  hand,  then,  as  Professor  Coe  has  said,1  "the 
sense  of  a  divine  presence  can  and  does  pene- 
trate all  human  faculties.  It  is  not  limited  to 
special  occasions,  or  to  moments  of  exaltation. 
....  In  a  word,  the  religious  experience  is 
what  we  should  expect  it  to  be  if  the  doctrine 
of  the  immanence  of  God  is  true."  And,  on  the 
other  hand,  if  the  spiritual  life  is  the  highest 
life  of  spirits,  of  persons,  then  its  fundamental 
laws,  it  would  seem,  must  be  the  laws  of  deep- 
ening personal  relations  with  men  and  with  God. 
Subsidiary  laws,  doubtless,  there  will  be,  but 
all  closely  related  to  these  fundamental  laws. 
Christianity  is  quite  able  to  meet  this  scientific 
demand.  Indeed,  science's  assertion  of  the  uni- 
versality of  law  is  only  a  "disguised  expression" 
for  the  final  Unity  of  things,  so  strongly  asserted 
by  a  theistic  view.  And  the  more  surely  the 
Christian  believes  in  a  "faithful  Creator,"  the 
more  surely  will  he  rest  in  the  great  recognized 
laws  of  the  spiritual,  as  well  as  the  material 
world. 

And,  again,  for  a  generation  to  which  the  per- 
sonal means  more  than  to  any  that  has  preceded, 
religion  must  be  peculiarly  marked  with  a 
sense  of  the  value  and  sacredness  of  the  person. 

1  The  Religion  of  a  Mature  Mind,  pp.  342-343. 


THE  TEST  OF  PRESENT  TRENDS  OF  THOUGHT  171 

And  this  sense  can  hardly  fail  to  dominate  any 
theology  that  is  to  meet  the  deeper  demand  of 
our  times. 

In  a  precisely  similar  way,  our  conception  of 
religion  must  meet  the  very  marked  social  and 
ethical  consciousness  of  our  time.  When  one 
tries  to  see  exactly  what  the  social  consciousness 
involves,  it  will  be  found  to  include  the  sense 
of  the  fundamental  likeness  of  men,  of  their 
inevitable  mutual  influence,  of  the  value  and 
sacredness  of  the  individual  person,  as  well  as 
the  sense  of  obligation  to  others,  and  love.  The 
very  statement  of  these  elements  of  the  social 
consciousness  suggests  how  surely  akin  they  are 
to  the  demands  of  the  Christian  spirit,  how 
certainly,  indeed,  they  have  grown  naturally 
out  of  Christ's  conception  of  every  man  as  a 
child  of  God.  And  that  "rational  ethical  de- 
mocracy," to  which  the  social  evolution  looks,  is 
hardly  other  than  the  "civilization  of  brotherly 
men"  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.1 

1  For  the  detailed  argument  cf.  King:  Tlieology  and  the  Social 
Consciousness,  Chapters  V-XII. 


XXVII 

THE  TEST  OF  PRESENT  TRENDS  OF 
THOUGHT— PSYCHOLOGICAL 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  pause  a  little  longer 
upon  the  psychological  test  of  the  Christian 
religion.  For  in  this  psychological  test  are  in- 
volved, in  a  kind  of  concrete  way,  all  the  other 
tests.  And  it  can  hardly  fail  to  be  suggestive 
to  try  to  apply  to  the  Christian  view  and  life 
the  test  of  the  four  great  inferences  of  modern 
psychology,  once  before  used  to  suggest  the 
great  common  conditions  of  all  the  activities  of 
our  life:  the  complexity  of  life,  the  unity  of 
the  mind,  the  central  importance  of  will  and 
action,  and  the  concreteness  of  the  real. 

Does  Christianity,  conceived  as  life,  meet  these 
tests?  The  recognition  of  the  complexity  of  life 
on  the  part  of  Christianity  seems  to  me  to  be 
clearly  shown  in  the  fact  that  Christianity  is, 
in  the  first  place,  not  ascetic.  My  own  clear 
judgment  is  in  entire  agreement  with  that  of 
Professor  James  Seth  that  Christ's  conception 
cannot  be  regarded  as  truly  ascetic,  in  the  ordi- 
nary acceptance  of  that  term.1     Christ  certainly 

1  Rational  Living,  pp.  93-102;  cf.  James  Seth:  "On  certain 
Alleged  Defects  in  Christian  Morality,"  Hibbert  Journal,  October, 
1907. 

172 


THE   TEST  OF   THE    PSYCHOLOGICAL   TREND  1 73 

neither  lives  nor  thinks  as  an  ascetic.  His  whole 
point  of  view  is  rather  that  of  recognizing  all 
life  as  coming  from  the  Father,  and  all  its  goods 
to  be  rejoiced  in  as  goods;  though  with  distinct 
recognition  that  some  are  inferior  to  others,  and 
that,  if  need  be,  the  lower  must  be  unhesitat- 
ingly sacrificed  to  the  higher. 

The  similar  refusal  of  the  whole  New  Testa- 
ment to  draw  any  line  of  separation  between  the 
sacred  and  the  secular,  is  another  proof  of  Chris- 
tianity's recognition  of  the  complexity  of  life. 
Christianity's  knitting  up  of  the  human  and  the 
divine,  too,  is  itself  an  assertion  of  the  same  fact. 
The  Christian  view  is  no  gnosticism.  God  is 
for  it  the  source  of  all.  And  it  is  the  same  God, 
that  made  the  world  and  man,  who  reveals  him- 
self in  Christ.  The  very  assertion  of  the  incar- 
nation, and  the  conception  of  duty  as  the  will  of 
God,  of  love  as  the  first  and  great  command- 
ment, and  of  God  himself  as  love  and  personal, 
are  all  so  many  separate  assertions  of  the  com- 
plexity and  interrelatedness  of  all  life.  And  in 
this  growing  psychological  conviction  of  the 
complexity  of  life,  of  the  interrelatedness  of  all, 
we  are,  thus,  only  returning  to  the  standpoint 
of  Christ  and  of  the  New  Testament. 

And  so  harmonious  is  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
with  the  present  psychological  emphasis  upon 


1 74     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

the  unity  of  mind,  that  this  may  even  be  called 
one  of  the  four  fundamental  principles  and 
motives  chiefly  used  by  Christ  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.  He  appeals  repeatedly  to  the 
principle  of  the  unity  of  the  spiritual  life,  in- 
sisting that  it  is  impossible  to  fall  below  one's 
best  at  one  point  and  be  all  that  one  ought  to  be 
at  other  points.  And  it  is  hardly  too  much  to 
say  that,  in  its  recognition  of  the  unity  of  the 
mind,  the  Christian  conception  fulfils  most  com- 
pletely both  the  intellectual  and  the  emotional 
conditions  of  rational  living. 

On  the  intellectual  side,  it  gives  the  most 
needed  helps,  and  is  able  to  face  the  most  dan- 
gerous hindrances. 

While  it  makes  no  attempt  to  answer  all 
curious  intellectual  inquiries,  it  does  give,  in  the 
great  revelation  in  Christ,  sufficient  ground  for 
faith.  The  history  of  the  Christian  world  is 
itself  the  best  proof  that  beyond  any  other  in- 
fluence, it  has  also  brought  men  to  full  self-con- 
sciousness. 

At  the  same  time,  as  Romanes  so  suggestively 
says,  it  has  left  men  free  for  all  scientific  inquiry. 
"One  of  the  strongest  pieces  of  objective  evi- 
dence," he  says,  "in  favor  of  Christianity  .... 
is  the  absence  from  the  biography  of  Christ  of 
any  doctrine  which  the  subsequent  growth  of 


THE   TEST  OF   THE    PSYCHOLOGICAL   TREND  1 75 

human  knowledge — whether  in  natural  science, 
ethics,  political  economy,  or  elsewhere — has  had 
to  discount.  This  negative  argument  is  really 
almost  as  strong  as  is  the  positive  one  from  what 
Christ  did  teach.  For,  when  we  consider  what 
a  large  number  of  sayings  are  recorded  of — or  at 
least  attributed  to — him,  it  becomes  most  re- 
markable that  in  literal  truth  there  is  no  reason 
why  any  of  his  words  should  ever  pass  away  in 
the  sense  of  becoming  obsolete.  'Not  even  now 
could  it  be  easy,'  says  John  Stuart  Mill,  'even 
for  an  unbeliever,  to  find  a  better  translation 
of  the  rule  of  virtue  from  the  abstract  into  the 
concrete,  than  to  endeavor  so  to  live  that  Christ 
would  approve  our  life.'  Contrast  Jesus  Christ 
in  this  respect  with  other  thinkers  of  like  an- 
tiquity. Even  Plato,  who  though  some  four 
hundred  years  before  Christ  in  point  of  time, 
was  greatly  in  advance  of  him  in  respect  of 
philosophic  thought — not  only  because  Athens 
then  presented  the  extraordinary  phenomenon 
which  it  did  of  genius  in  all  directions  never 
since  equalled,  but  also  because  he,  following 
Socrates,  was,  so  to  speak,  the  greatest  repre- 
sentative of  human  reason  in  the  direction  of 
spirituality — even  Plato,  I  say,  is  nowhere  in  this 
respect  as  compared  with  Christ.  Read  the  dia- 
logues, and  see  how  enormous  is  the  contrast 


I76     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

with  the  Gospels  in  respect  of  errors  of  all  kinds 
— reaching  even  to  absurdity  in  respect  to  reason, 
and  to  sayings  shocking  to  the  moral  sense.  Yet 
this  is  confessedly  the  highest  level  of  human 
reason  on  the  lines  of  spirituality,  when  unaided 
by  alleged  revelation." 

And  the  contribution  which  Christianity 
makes  even  on  the  intellectual  side,  in  that  it 
gives  a  clear,  definite,  ethical  ideal  in  Christ,  is 
quite  inestimable.  The  intellectual  stimulus  of 
such  an  ideal,  to  say  nothing  of  its  moral  value, 
is  beyond  computation. 

And  when  one  thinks  of  the  chief  intellectual 
hindrances  in  true  living — over-sophistication, 
making  insights  take  the  place  of  doing,  and  in- 
tellectual vagueness — it  can  hardly  be  doubted 
that  Christianity  is  peculiarly  adapted  to  meet 
them.  In  its  firm  hold,  through  Christ,  on  great 
convictions  and  ideals,  it  has  no  room  for  sophis- 
tication; and  its  predominant  moral  interest 
and  insistent  ethical  demand  definitely  shut  out 
those  who  hear  and  do  not.  At  the  same  time, 
both  the  definiteness  of  Christ's  ethical  ideals 
and  his  conception  of  all  moral  demands  as  the 
will  of  a  loving  Father,  stand  opposed  to  the 
greatest  dangers  of  intellectual  vagueness. 

In  the  same  way,  too,  the  example  and  the 
teaching  of  Christ  point  to  the  best  and  most 


THE   TEST  OF   THE    PSYCHOLOGICAL   TREND  1 77 

normal  emotional  conditions.  If  we  really  be- 
lieve the  teaching  of  Jesus,  there  is  already  open 
to  us  the  most  ideal  emotional  conditions  for 
the  highest  living.  It  cannot  fail  to  give  what 
psychology  recognizes  as  the  stimulating  effect 
of  joyful  emotions.  It  is  truly  a  religion  of  good 
tidings.  With  its  trust  in  a  loving  Father  and 
its  conception  of  all  duty  as  his  will,  its  view  of 
life  as  training,  and  its  assurance  of  the  immortal 
hope,  it  brings  to  men  all  of  good  that  a  religion 
can  well  be  conceived  to  bring. 

Putting  men,  as  it  does,  face  to  face  with  an 
incomparable  literary  and  personal  expression 
of  the  greatest  truths  and  motives,  it  calls  out 
in  men,  too,  in  the  profoundest  way,  the  needed 
sober  and  strenuous  moods  for  the  highest  will- 
ing. Christianity  is  equally  decisive  in  setting 
aside  all  strained  and  sham  and  passive  emotions. 
Neither  in  Christ's  example  nor  in  his  teaching 
is  stress  anywhere  laid  on  feeling.  It  is  rather 
taken  as  an  incidental  result  of  true  living.  And 
in  its  powerful  and  combined  appeal  to  reason 
and  conscience  and  will,  it  gives  power  to  sus- 
pend action  in  the  face  of  strong  emotion.  Chris- 
tianity never  allows  the  right  of  simple  feeling 
to  rule. 

Just  because  it  is  profoundly  ethical,  Chris- 
tianity cannot  fail  to  recognize,  with  modern 

12 


178      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

psychology,  the  enormous  place  of  will  in  life. 
It  is  only  in  that  ethical  living  that  takes  place 
in  personal  relations,  that  the  whole  will  is 
called  out.  And  in  this  stimulating  and  strength- 
ening of  the  will,  Christianity  has  at  the  same 
time,  in  accordance  with  this  psychological  em- 
phasis, strengthened  and  deepened  all  the  life  of 
men.  It  has  made  men  capable  of  being  more, 
of  counting  more,  of  enjoying  more.  So,  too, 
psychology's  recognition  of  the  fundamental 
nature  of  self-control  may  be  regarded  as  dis- 
tinctively Christian.  Indeed,  Christ's  great, 
fundamental,  all-inclusive  law  of  losing  the  life 
to  save  the  life  is  only  the  highest  expression 
of  self-control.  And  Christianity's  ethical  de- 
mand, once  more,  calls  for  self-control  so  con- 
stantly that  its  attitude  has  even  been  mistaken 
for  that  of  asceticism.  Moreover,  the  self- 
control  which  Christianity  enjoins  and  makes 
possible  is  not  merely  negative,  but  thoroughly 
positive,  as  psychology  demands  that  it  should 
be. 

And  Christianity  meets  in  an  even  deeper 
way  the  insistence  of  psychology  on  the  central 
importance  of  will  and  action,  by  the  thorough- 
going fashion  in  which  it  makes  the  objective 
mood — the  mood  of  activity  and  of  work — 
the  normal  mood  of  man.     In  a  degree  true 


THE   TEST  OF   THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   TREND  1 79 

of  no  other  influence,  it  has  proved  able  to 
take  men  out  of  themselves,  in  its  absorption 
of  them  in  the  great  work  of  a  great  cause,  and 
in  the  great  love  of  a  great  Saviour.  In  this 
very  way  it  not  only  fulfils  for  men  a  chief 
condition  of  character  and  happiness  and  in- 
fluence, but  it  brings  to  them  a  chief  means  of 
all  three,  in  work  which  can  be  the  fullest  ex- 
pression of  man's  best  self;  work  that  men  can 
think  of  as  God-given,  and,  because  service  both 
to  God  and  to  men,  as  of  abiding  worth.  Chris- 
tianity calls  men  even  to  the  sharing  of  Christ's 
own  vicarious  and  redemptive  work. 

And  finally,  Christianity  exemplifies  not  less 
fully  psychology's  fourth  fundamental  insis- 
tence on  the  concreteness  of  the  real,  in  its  pre- 
eminent respect  for  the  person — the  greatest 
condition  of  character  and  happiness  and  in- 
fluence, and  in  its  preeminent  use  of  personal 
association — the  greatest  means  to  character  and 
happiness  and  influence.  For  the  assertion  of 
the  concreteness  of  the  real  is  finally  the  insis- 
tence upon  the  personal  in  the  whole  of  its 
range.  Now,  on  the  one  hand,  respect  for  the 
person  lies  so  deeply  imbedded  in  the  very 
spirit  of  Christianity,  that  one  cannot  fail  to 
see  it  in  the  entire  conduct  and  teaching  of 
Jesus.    One  cannot  fail  to  regard  it,  according 


l8o     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

to  the  Christian  conception,  as  even  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  God  in  his  treatment  of 
men;  and  he  cannot  doubt,  as  Lotze  and  Wundt 
have  both  borne  testimony,  that  to  Christianity 
it  is  due  that  this  respect  for  man  as  man  has 
come  into  the  world.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
very  fact  that  Christianity  points  not  to  a 
redeeming  doctrine,  but  to  a  redeeming  person, 
and  professes  to  open  to  men  a  constant,  inti- 
mate, and  unobtrusive  relation  of  the  personal 
Spirit  of  God  with  their  spirits,  shows  how 
firmly  imbedded  in  the  Christian  teaching  is 
the  thought  of  the  supreme  importance  of  per- 
sonal association. 

With  even  so  rapid  and  imperfect  an  attempt 
to  apply  to  Christianity  the  tests  of  modern 
psychology,  one  can  hardly  fail  to  see  that  here 
at  least  the  Christian  view  is  indubitably  con- 
nected with  one  of  the  realest  trends  of  our 
own  time,  and  meets  with  convincing  satisfac- 
tion all  the  tests  involved  in  the  dominant 
elements  of  this  trend. 


XXVIII 

MAN'S   ESSENTIAL   NEED   OF   RELIGION 

But  in  order  that  the  spiritual  life  might 
become  to  us  most  real  and  significant,  we 
found  not  only  that  it  must  be  connected  indubit- 
ably with  all  that  is  realest  to  us,  but  must  also 
be  seen  to  make  its  own  unmistakable  and  in- 
dispensable contribution  to  life.  That  is,  we 
must  be  not  only  radically  liberal  in  our  view 
in  the  recognition  of  the  inter-relatedness  of 
religion  with  all  life,  but  also  radically  Chris- 
tian in  the  recognition  of  the  essential  and 
unique  contribution  of  religion  itself. 

That  religion  has  most  assuredly  this  con- 
tribution to  make,  no  man  can  doubt,  who  has 
once  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  fundamental 
nature  of  religion.  For  myself,  this  comes  out 
most  clearly  in  seeing  how  inevitably,  as  I  have 
elsewhere  pointed  out,  a  faith  essentially  re- 
ligious logically  underlies  all  our  reasoning,  all 
work  worth  doing,  all  strenuous  moral  endeavor, 
all  earnest  social  service.  The  argument  so 
closely  concerns  the  present  inquiry  that  its 
reproduction  here  may  be  pardoned. 


ISI 


1 82      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

For,  in  the  first  place,  a  faith  essentially 
religious  logically  underlies  all  our  reasoning. 
For  every  argument  that  we  can  possibly  make, 
especially  concerning  any  of  the  greater  inter- 
ests of  life,  must  go  forward  upon  the  double 
assumption  of  the  consistency  and  the  worth  of 
the  world.  We  can  reason  at  all,  only  so  far 
as  we  have  already  virtually  asserted  that  the 
world  is  a  world  in  which  we  can  rationally 
think;  and  our  most  significant  arguments  re- 
quire, as  well,  that  we  should  add  the  faith 
that  the  world  is  a  world  in  which  we  can 
rationally  live.  That,  in  other  words,  there  is 
the  unity  and  consistency  of  one  truth  and  of 
a  unified  reason  in  the  world,  and  an  essential 
love  at  its  heart  that  makes  life  abundantly 
worth  living.  And  these  two  fundamental  as- 
sumptions of  all  our  reasoning  are  essentially 
religious  convictions. 

That  men  often  do  not  recognize  these  logical 
implications  of  their  reasoning,  and  may  use 
with  great  complacency  impersonal  and  irre- 
ligious language  concerning  their  experience 
that  will  not  bear  thinking  through — this  is  all 
too  true;  but  this  does  not  alter  the  fact  of  the 
ultimate  logical  implications  of  their  deepest 
thinking  and  living.  The  mere  report,  there- 
fore, of  the  psychological  facts  of  a  man's  relig- 
ious experience,  as  he  conceives  it,  is  by  no  means 
the  final  step  in  any  fundamental  religious 
inquiry. 

In  the  same  way,  a  faith  essentially  religious 


man's  essential  need  of  religion  183 

underlies  all  work  worth  doing.    For,  as  Paulsen 
says,  speaking  simply  as  a  philosopher,  'Who- 
ever devotes  his  life  to  a  cause  believes  in  that 
cause;    and   this   belief,   be   his   creed   what    it 
may,  has  always  something  of  the  form  of  re- 
ligion.'    'Hence,'  he  adds,  'faith  infers  that  an 
inner  connection   exists   between   the   real   and 
the  valuable  within  the  domain  of  history,  and 
believes  that  in  history  something  like  an  im- 
manent  principle   of    reason    or   justice    favors 
the  right  and  the  good  and  leads  it  to  victory 
over  all  resisting  forces.'     It  is  impossible,  that 
is,  for  a  man  with  full  consciousness  to  throw 
himself  enthusiastically  into  a  work  which  he 
regards  from  the  start  as  absolutely  hopeless. 
When,  then,  he  takes  up  the  work  of  his  life  call- 
ing, or  the  cause  to  which  he  devotes  himself,  as 
work  really  worth  while,  in  which  he  can  lose 
himself  with  joy,  whether  consciously  or  not, 
he  is  virtually  asserting  his  faith  in  a  plan  larger 
than  his  own  plan,  the  all-embracing  plan  of 
the  on-going  providence  of  God,  which   shall 
catch  up  the  little  fragments  of  his  work  into 
a  larger  whole  and  make  them  contribute,  thus, 
to  a  goal  greater  than  any  that  the  man  himself 
may  set.    To  believe  in  the  final  worth  of  one's 
own  work,  then,  logically  implies  a  real  belief 
in  God.    For  'principles'  and  'plans'  and  'laws,' 
so  far  as  I  am  able  to  see,  have  no  real  existence, 
that  will  bear  thorough  thinking,   and  can  do 
nothing,  apart  from  a  Being  that  must  be  con- 
ceived ultimately  in  essentially  personal  terms. 


184      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

A  fully  religious  conviction  logically  underlies 
all  enthusiastic  work. 

In  all  strenuous  moral  endeavor,  in  the  fight 
for  character  for  one's  self,  a  faith  essentially 
religious  is  in  like  manner  involved.  So  Mar- 
tineau  asserts:  'Nothing  less  than  the  majesty 
of  God,  and  the  power  of  the  world  to  come, 
can  maintain  the  peace  and  sanctity  of  our  homes, 
the  order  and  serenity  of  our  minds,  the  spirit 
of  patience  and  tender  mercy  in  our  hearts.' 
For  here,  once  more,  we  shall  not  earnestly 
attempt  a  hopeless  task.  And  if,  in  the  surrender 
to  the  highest  in  us,  we  cannot  believe  that  we 
thereby  at  the  same  time  link  ourselves  to  the 
highest  in  the  universe,  we  shall  not  be  able  to 
reach  that  courage  which  gives  promise  of  any 
high  attainment.  Only  the  highest  motives  are 
finally  sufficient  here.  If  our  faith  in  the  ulti- 
mate ethical  trend  of  the  great  power  back  of 
the  universe  really  breaks  down,  we  shall  hardly 
be  able  to  keep  our  faith  even  in  our  own  ideals. 

That  this  faith  in  the  ethical  trend  of  the 
universe  is  always  consciously  present,  or  even 
the  need  of  it  definitely  felt  in  any  recognized 

religious  way,  I  am  far  from  affirming 

There  are  great  temperamental  differences  here, 
doubtless,  and  the  very  force  of  life  in  us  may 
carry  us  over  many  thin  places  in  our  reason- 
ing, without  misgiving;  but  the  fact  remains 
that  hopeful,  courageous,  moral  endeavor  logic- 
ally requires  the  faith  that  we  are  not  here  at 
war  with  the  ultimate  purpose  of  things. 


man's  essential  need  of  religion  185 

And,  once  more,  a  faith  essentially  religious 
logically  underlies,  in  like  manner,  all  earnest 
social  service.  I  do  not  forget  that  in  the  incon- 
sistency of  our  natures  men  may  often  go  on  in 
forgetfulness  of  the  real  significance  of  their 
actions,  and  in  the  strength  of  motives  which  they 
have  at  least  formally  denied.  Nor  do  I  forget 
that  it  is  possible  for  social  service  itself  to  be- 
come, for  the  time  being,  even  a  kind  of  fad,  and 
for  the  phrases  of  the  new  social  consciousness  of 
our  time  to  become  onlv  a  new  cant.  Nor  do 
I  forget  that  men  in  such  unselfish  service  may 
honestly  think  of  themselves,  for  a  time,  as  not 
needing  in  any  degree  either  the  convictions  or 
the  consolations  of  religion. 

Nevertheless,  when  I  try  really  to  think  the 
situation  through,  I  am  not  able  to  doubt  that 
Nash  is  right  when  he  says:  'Nothing  save  a 
settled  and  fervid  conviction  that  the  universe 
is  on  the  side  of  the  will  ....  can  give  the 
will  the  force  and  edge  suitable.'  For  here, 
also,  we  shall  not  throw  ourselves  with  all 
abandon  into  a  task  that  we  think  either  hope- 
less or  worthless.  And  that  means  that  we  must 
have  back  of  our  social  service  the  great  re- 
ligious convictions  of  the  love  of  God  and  the 
worth  of  men.  We  shall  not  attempt  to  dip 
out  the  ocean  with  a  cup,  and  we  shall  not  enter 
on  a  boundless  social  task  in  which  there  is  no 
hope  of  accomplishing  any  permanent  and  large 
result.  We  must  believe  here  that  we  work 
with  God,  in  line  with  his  own  purpose,  and 


1 86      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

that  the  mighty  will  of  the  living  God  is  pledged 
to  our  attempt.1 

Moreover,  let  it  here  be  added,  so  far  as  the 
Christian  religion  is  able  to  fulfil  its  promise 
of  putting  men  into  real  communion  with  God 
known  as  Father;  so  far  as  it  is  able  to  give 
undoubted  worth  to  life  in  the  conception  of 
man  as  child  of  God;  so  long  as  it  can  find  in 
all  duty  simply  the  will  of  a  loving  Father; 
and  so  long  as  it  can  give  to  men  assured  faith 
in  an  immortal  life  of  most  significant  work 
and  of  the  highest  personal  association — so  long 
must  Christianity  have  an  indispensable  con- 
tribution to  make  to  human  life.  A  truly  Chris- 
tian  faith  can  alone  give  the  ideal  conditions 
of  the  richest  life. 

If  we  turn,  now,  from  this  general  considera- 
tion of  the  presumptive  evidence  of  the  reality 
and  significance  of  the  spiritual  life,  to  seek  to 
indicate  more  definitely  just  how  we  are  to  find 
our  way  into  reality  here,  we  may  well  raise 
three  questions:  How  may  we  proceed  most 
positively  and  satisfactorily  in  our  rational  argu- 
ment for  the  existence  of  a  God  who  truly  ful- 
fils the  Christian  conception?  How  are  we 
to  find  our  way  into  an  undoubted  personal 
relation  to  God?    How  is  reality  to  be  brought 

'  Personal  and  Ideal  Elements  in  Education,  pp.  90-97. 


man's  essential  need  of  religion  187 

into  single  Christian  doctrines?  That  is,  what 
is  the  way  into  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  life, 
as  to  the  theistic  argument,  as  to  personal  rela- 
tion to  God,  and  as  to  particular  Christian 
doctrines? 


AS  TO  THE  THEISTIC  ARGUMENT 


XXIX 

FACING  THE  FACTS  OFTEN   IGNORED 

The  inquiry  into  the  causes  of  the  seeming 
unreality  of  the  spiritual  world  is  fundamental. 
Unless  it  is  thoroughly  made,  no  attempted 
positive  argument  can  satisfy.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  this  inquiry  cannot  be  thoroughly  made, 
as  we  have  seen,  without  really  involving  at 
numerous  points  some  indication  of  the  positive 
way  out.  For  the  very  reason,  therefore,  that 
we  have  dwelt  so  long  on  the  reasons  for  the 
seeming  obscurity  of  spiritual  truth  and  life,  and 
upon  the  presumptive  evidence  of  the  reality 
of  the  spiritual,  we  may  hope  to  state  with 
brevity  and  yet  with  explicitness  our  positive 
conclusions,  making  use  at  every  point  of  results 
already  reached. 

It  is  worth  remembering,  as  well,  that,  in  any 
case,  our  positions  on  really  ultimate  questions 
are  best  determined  by  broad  considerations 
rather  than  by  minute  argumentation.  We  legit- 
imately set  aside  great  masses  of  such  minute 
argumentation  when  it  is  seen  to  proceed  from 
a  point  of  view,  on  good  grounds  rejected  by 

us.    One  sometimes  feels  that  one  of  the  main 

191 


192     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

rewards  of  the  experience  of  living  is  to  be 
found  in  just  this  acquired  ease  in  calmly  setting 
aside  great  piles  of  logic,  that  have  gone  forward 
upon  some  large  gratuitous  assumption,  or  that 
have  quite  left  out  of  account  the  main  con- 
sideration. One  is  sometimes  asked  what  he 
does  with  such  and  such  a  line  of  argument. 
Well,  when  a  man  has  definitely  abandoned  on 
good  grounds  a  given  standpoint,  he  doesn't  do 
anything  with  the  massive  arguments  which 
proceed  from  that  standpoint. 

And  in  reaching  decisive  points  of  view,  it  is 
particularly  enlightening  to  see  how  very  simple 
and  brief  the  dominating  considerations  in  one's 
mind  have  been.  You  can  read  no  strong,  think- 
ing man  at  length,  still  less  get  into  intimate 
conversation  with  him,  without  finding,  if  you 
refuse  to  be  confused  by  the  mere  multiplicity 
of  words,  that  there  are  in  him  a  few  absolutely 
dominant  convictions  capable  of  very  brief  and 
simple  statement,  and  in  fact  only  capable,  in 
themselves,  of  such  statement.  Three  or  four 
sentences  may  contain  the  heart  of  the  man's 
whole  argument  for  some  fundamental  position. 

These  facts  are  particularly  worth  recalling 
in  connection  with  this  question  of  religious  con- 
viction and  life;  for  let  us  frankly  say  that  the 
decisive,  positive  considerations  here — the  con- 


FACING  THE   FACTS  OFTEN   IGNORED  193 

siderations  that  really  determine — probably  can 
be  put  with  surprising  brevity.  It  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  matter  of  tomes.  Indeed,  one  may  well 
wonder  whether  the  real  grounds  of  our  con- 
victions have  not  been  greatly  obscured  by  many 
of  these  elaborate  argumentations  for  God. 

I  turn,  then,  with  some  hope,  to  attempt,  in 
the  light  of  the  principles  already  reached,  a 
comparatively  brief  statement,  both  of  the  theis- 
tic  argument  and  of  our  personal  relation  to 
God. 

And,  as  to  the  theistic  argument,  we  seem  to 
need,  first,  definitely  to  face  the  facts  ignored 
by  the  various  misconceptions  and  mistaken  or 
inadequate  points  of  view,  which  have  given 
the  sense  of  unreality  to  the  spiritual  life;  and, 
so,  to  see  the  thoroughly  fundamental  nature 
of  the  theistic  position;  and  thus  to  reach  the 
main  possible  lines  of  the  theistic  argument. 

To  begin  with,  we  cannot  expect  sound  results 
without  definitely  facing  and  taking  into  full 
account  the  facts  ignored  in  the  various  mistaken 
views  of  the  spiritual  life  that  have  been  con- 
sidered. This,  we  have  seen,  involves,  first, 
some  adequate  recognition  of  the  great  common 
conditions  of  life,  bodily  and  psychical — condi- 
tions that  continually  affect  our  thinking  as  well 
as  our  living.  In  particular,  for  our  religious 
13 


194     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

thinking,  we  found  that  that  meant  that  we  must 
bear  in  mind  the  practical  nature  of  all  knowl- 
edge and  belief:  that  knowledge  is  never  a 
merely  passive  process,  and  that  no  merely  theo- 
retical solution  of  our  problem  is  possible.  This 
compelled  us  to  set  aside  as  impossible,  or  un- 
reasonable, in  religious  thinking,  mathematical 
demonstration,  overwhelming  evidence,  any  sub- 
stitute for  living  experience,  the  expectation  of 
meeting  difficulties  out  of  hand,  taking  up  the 
religious  inquiry  as  something  wholly  new,  over- 
rating single  intellectual  difficulties  and  nega- 
tive criticism,  forgetting  the  results  of  long 
ignoring  of  facts,  and  especially,  forgetting  the 
ideal  assumptions  which  underlie  all  our  prac- 
tical beliefs. 

To  face  the  facts  ignored  in  the  mistaken  views 
of  the  spiritual  life  meant  also,  we  found,  definite 
guarding  against  the  common  fallacies  of  ignor- 
ing all  that  cannot  be  precisely  formulated,  of 
making  the  intellectual  the  sole  standard  of 
reality,  and  of  being  dominated  by  a  word,  by 
an  analogy,  or  by  the  merely  imageable. 

Sound  theistic  thinking,  we  saw,  further,  re- 
quired that  we  should  set  aside  as  quite  unwar- 
ranted certain  traditional  objections:  both  those 
which  come  from  an  undue  exaltation  of  the 
mathematico-mechanical  view  of  the  world — 


FACING  THE   FACTS  OFTEN    IGNORED  1 95 

like  the  difficulties  of  an  abstract  intellectualism, 
of  a  crude  sensationalism,  or  of  an  impossible 
hypostasizing  of  laws;  and  those  philosophical 
difficulties  which  are  supposed  to  put  religion  at 
peculiar  disadvantage.  Here  we  found  that 
religion  had  no  peculiar  responsibility  for  the 
solution  of  epistemological  and  metaphysical 
problems;  that  the  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of 
knowledge  did  not  concern  it  in  any  special  way; 
that,  in  particular,  the  terms  "Absolute"  and 
"Unchangeable,"  as  applied  to  God,  were  not 
to  be  gratuitously  taken  as  putting  God  out  of 
all  real  touch  with  men;  that  "Infinite"  and 
"Personality"  could  by  no  means  be  taken  as 
terms  mutually  contradictory;  and  that,  rather, 
the  attempted  impersonal  conceptions  of  God 
were  the  conceptions  that  refused  to  resolve 
into  any  clear  meaning. 

We  have  seen,  also,  as  bearing  on  the  prob- 
lem of  thorough-going  religious  thinking,  that 
the  religious  problem  must  be  in  certain  points 
clearly  distinguished  from  both  the  scientific 
and  philosophical  problems.  From  the  scien- 
tific problem:  as  a  problem  of  ideal  interpre- 
tation rather  than  of  causal  connection;  a 
problem  of  ultimate  inference,  rather  than  of 
merely  phenomenal  inquiry;  as  attempting  a 
different  ideal  construction  of  the  world  from 


196     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

that  attempted  by  science;  and  as  requiring  the 
whole  man  in  a  way  not  true  of  the  scientific 
problem,  which  is,  far  more  truly,  purely 
intellectual. 

From  the  philosophical  problem  as  ordinarily 
conceived,  the  problem  of  ultimate  religious 
thinking  was  differentiated  as  definitely  bring- 
ing into  its  inferences  as  data  the  facts  of  the 
historical  revelation  of  God, — the  preeminent 
spiritual  facts  of  the  race.  And  it  was  insisted 
that  we  had  no  right  to  expect  a  complete 
solution  from  an  investigation  that  ignored  these 
most  important  data  of  all. 

The  sense  of  unreality  of  the  spiritual  life 
which  comes  from  failure  to  fulfil  the  natural 
conditions,  concerns  theistic  thinking  only  in- 
directly, yet  very  really.  For  these  conditions 
point  out  the  one  way  to  that  experience  of 
the  spiritual  life,  which  alone  can  give  the  key 
to  any  adequate  interpretation  of  that  life,  and 
to  any  really  decisive  thinking  concerning  it. 
This  is  simply  the  common-sense  requirement 
that  a  man  should  know  something  of  what  he 
is  talking  about. 

So  far,  in  our  summary  of  the  facts  to  be 
faced  by  theistic  thinking,  we  have  dealt  with 
what  we  have  called  the  removable  causes  of 
the  seeming  unreality  of  the  spiritual  life. 


FACING  THE  FACTS  OFTEN   IGNORED  1 97 

When  we  ask  as  to  the  bearing  upon  our 
religious  thinking  of  the  unremovable  causes, 
we  find  ourselves  obliged  to  take  clear  account 
of  the  limitations  and  fluctuations  of  our  finite 
natures.  We  have,  then,  to  recognize  that  our 
view  of  the  world  is  necessarily  partial;  that 
by  our  very  natures  we  are  discursive  in  our 
living  and  thinking;  that  we  are  obliged  to 
reckon  upon  a  certain  ebb  and  flow  in  our  sense 
of  reality  everywhere;  that  we  must  expect 
these  limitations  and  fluctuations  to  be  specially 
felt  in  the  religious  inquiry,  where  we  are  deal- 
ing with  the  problems  of  the  Infinite,  where 
the  grounds  of  our  convictions  lie  quite  below 
the  surface,  and  where  so  much  depends  upon 
the  ethical  attitude.  In  view  of  this  inevitable 
fluctuation  in  the  sense  of  reality,  we  saw  that 
we  must  give  special  importance  to  the  witness 
of  our  consciously  best  hours. 

The  further  thought — that  this  seeming  un- 
reality is  in  part  definitely  intended  for  our 
better  moral  and  spiritual  training — suggests, 
in  spite  of  great  similarities,  that  there  is  a 
reason  that  must  be  decisive  in  any  question  of 
the  spiritual  life,  why  we  should  not  expect 
here  even  such  proof  as  might  be  readily  acces- 
sible in  other  spheres  of  life.  God  is  moved,  in 
this  hiding  of  himself,  by  an  abiding  reverence 


I98     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

for  our  human  individuality  and  moral  initia- 
tive. And  yet,  even  in  this  intended  obscurity, 
we  found  an  implied  evidence.  Our  very  ques- 
tionings, to  be  themselves  explicable,  seemed 
necessarily  a  proof  of  that  about  which  they 
questioned. 

This  bare  summary,  perhaps,  justifies  the  con- 
clusion that  there  are  here  considerations  which 
have  an  important  bearing  on  all  theistic  think- 
ing, and  that  our  theistic  argument  must  go 
forward  in  clear  recognition  of  these  considera- 
tions. In  particular,  we  have  felt  that  these 
considerations  gave  reasonable  ground  for  set- 
ting aside  initial  objections  to  the  theistic  argu- 
ment, and  for  meeting  some  of  the  most  impor- 
tant difficulties  both  as  to  the  conception  of  God, 
and  as  to  the  relation  of  God  to  the  finite. 
At  the  same  time  they  have  brought  clearly 
into  view  the  necessary  limitations  in  such 
theistic  proofs  as  may  be  attempted.  We  seem 
prepared,  thus,  to  pass  to  a  brief  and  compre- 
hensive statement  of  the  main  lines  of  the  theistic 
argument;  although  it  may  be  doubted  whether, 
when  one  has  given  full  weight  to  the  considera- 
tions just  reviewed,  the  mere  formulation  of  the 
theistic  argument  has  much  contribution  to 
make. 


XXX 

THE  NECESSARY   LIMITATIONS   IN   THE 
ARGUMENT 

And,  first,  let  us  definitely  state,  in  the  light 
of  the  principles  already  traversed,  the  neces- 
sary limitations  in  the  theistic  argument.  From 
our  present  position,  we  can  see  beforehand, 
that  no  strict  and  demonstrative  proof  of  the 
existence  of  God  is  possible.  We  shall  not  be 
surprised,  therefore,  at  the  manifest  limitations 
of  the  ordinary  forms  of  the  theistic  argument. 
Many  things  forbid  anything  like  strict  proof 
here. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  no  absolute  demon- 
stration outside  of  mathematics,  but  only  prob- 
able reasoning.  A  strict  mathematical  demon- 
stration, then,  is  here  impossible. 

Moreover,  even  in  the  only  sense  in  which 
we  may  speak  of  strict  proof  outside  of  mathe- 
matics— the  case  of  complete  deduction — it  can- 
not be  applied  to  God.  For,  as  Purinton  has 
pointed  out,  such  deduction  involves  a  classing 
of  the  individual  concerning  whom  the  argu- 
ment  is    made,    and    God    admits   of    no   such 

classing.     He  is  not  one  of  a  class  of  gods.     A 

199 


200     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

strict  deductive  argument,  also,  is,  then,  im- 
possible. 

Moreover,  if  one  attempts  to  reach  his  con- 
clusion by  induction,  it  is  plain  that  we  can 
know,  and  have  to  do,  only  with  finite  data. 
Now,  it  cannot  be  that  finite  data  should  give 
us  sufficient  ground  for  a  strict  inference  to  the 
Infinite.  A  strict  inductive  proof  is  thus  im- 
possible. 

Once  more,  if  one  is  to  use  terms  with  full 
accuracy,  the  actual  concrete  in  any  case  cannot 
be  reached  in  a  demonstrative  way.  We  can 
only  know  the  concrete — a  Person,  in  this  case — 
in  experience;  and,  in  the  present  argument, 
there  is  the  further  difficulty,  that  God  is  not 
for  us  a  direct  sensuous  fact;  and,  moreover, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  any  manifestation  of 
him,  that  we  could  take  in,  must  be  necessarily 
finite.  His  fulness  could  only  be  partly  mani- 
fested. Along  the  line,  then,  of  even  some  kind 
of  perception,  an  Infinite  could  not  be  strictly 
given. 

Again,  the  moral  reasons  for  the  comparative 
hiddenness  of  God  have  to  be  considered — both 
that  sense  of  the  unreality  of  God  which  comes 
from  long  practical  ignoring  of  him,  and  that 
intended  unobtrusiveness  of  God  which  arises 
from  his  reverent  regard  for  the  human  person- 


NECESSARY    LIMITATIONS   IN    THE   ARGUMENT         201 

ality.  In  such  a  situation,  also,  strict  proof  is 
plainly  set  aside.  The  moral  argument  cannot 
be  made  coercive. 

Finally,  strict  proof  here  is  impossible,  be- 
cause that  which  is  to  be  the  goal  of  the  argu- 
ment for  God,  must  be  really  the  fundamental 
assumption  of  all  argument,  including  that 
made  for  God.  This  will  be  more  clear  later. 
We  may  content  ourselves  now  with  Lotze's  state- 
ment that  all  these  proofs  for  the  existence 
of  God  themselves  "presuppose  the  absolute 
validity  of  a  truth  which  knits  all  the  world 
together,"  and  so  seem  in  part,  at  least,  to  as- 
sume at  the  start  their  conclusion.  The  difficulty 
is  not  unlike  that  in  which  any  argument  for 
the  trustworthiness  of  our  faculties  is  involved, 
where,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  evident  that,  if  any 
weight  is  to  be  given  to  the  argument,  one  must 
assume  the  trustworthiness  of  the  faculties  which 
make  the  argument,  but  which  by  hypothesis 
are  under  question.  So,  as  to  the  argument  for 
God,  just  so  far  as  the  goal  is  assumed  in  the 
argument,  it  is  plainly  not  strictly  proved. 

There  seem,  then,  to  be  decisive  reasons  why 
a  strict  proof,  in  any  sense,  of  the  existence  of 
God  is  not  to  be  expected.  What  lines  of  argu- 
ment are  open? 


XXXI 

THE  MAIN   LINES  OF  ARGUMENT 

It  should  be  remembered  that  we  are  here 
speaking  of  argument,  not  of  life-experience. 

We  may  argue,  first,  directly  from  the  fact 
of  Christ  himself, — his  life,  his  teaching,  and 
especially  his  consciousness — as  the  greatest  and 
most  significant  fact  in  the  world,  and  so  our 
best  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  in  the  full 
Christian  sense.  This  seems  to  me,  even  from 
the  side  of  pure  argument,  the  most  decisive 
proof.  The  argument  goes  upon  the  simple 
assumption  that,  if  we  are  ever  to  discern  the 
real  nature  of  the  ultimate  world-ground,  our 
best  light  must  come  from  the  greatest  and  most 
significant  facts.  For  myself,  I  have  no  doubt 
that  Christ  is  the  most  significant  of  all  facts 
known  to  us,  and,  therefore,  the  best  basis  for 
direct  and  decisive  inference  to  the  nature  of 
the  world-ground.  The  argument  does  not  at 
all  go,  it  should  be  noticed,  upon  any  assumption 
of  the  arbitrary  authority  of  Jesus,  but  simply 
upon  the  significance  of  what  he  is.  Any  au- 
thority subsequently  given  him  must  be  based 

wholly  upon  what  he  is  in  fact  found  to  be.     I 

202 


THE    MAIN    LINES   OF   ARGUMENT  203 

count  the  fact  of  Christ,  the  greatest  of  all  proofs 
of  a  completely  satisfying  God, — the  proof  most 
powerful  to  produce  conviction  in  the  mind  of 
a  man  who  has  himself  come  to  full  moral  self- 
consciousness. 

One  may  argue,  similarly,  (but  less  decisively, 
so  long  as  Christ  is  omitted)  from  the  whole 
historical  revelation  of  God — from  the  line  of 
the  prophets,  and  from  the  great  spiritual  seers 
of  all  time,  as  constituting  the  greatest  and  most 
significant  historical  movement  of  the  world. 
Persons  are  incontrovertibly  the  greatest  facts, 
and  the  most  significant  data.  Let  us  not,  then, 
ignore  the  most  decisive  evidences  in  our  search 
for  God,  nor  underestimate  the  greatness  of  the 
personalities  with  whom  we  have  here  to  do. 
One  may  well  recall  the  words  of  a  thorough- 
going modern  critic  like  Cornill,  concerning 
Amos  and  Hosea,  for  example.  "Amos,"  he 
says,  "is  one  of  the  most  marvellous  and  in- 
comprehensible figures  in  the  history  of  the 
human  mind,  the  pioneer  of  a  process  of  evo- 
lution, from  which  a  new  epoch  of  humanity 
dates."  And  Hosea,  too,  he  counts  "among  the 
greatest  religious  geniuses  which  the  world  has 
ever  produced."1  We  are  not  to  suppose  that 
the   argument   from   such    personalities    is   less 

4  The  Prophets,  pp.  46,  50. 


204     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

significant  than  the  argument  from  things.  God 
is  best  known  in  his  completest  manifestations. 

Turning  to  lines  of  argument  more  tradi- 
tional, it  may  be  justly  urged  that  the  plain 
logical  defects  to  be  pointed  out  in  all  the 
common  forms  of  the  cosmological,  teleological, 
and  ontological  proofs,  seem  themselves  to  show 
a  practical  initial  certainty  of  God,  on  other 
grounds.  These  arguments  have  been  taken  as 
sufficiently  satisfying,  and  not  narrowly  scruti- 
nized, because  their  goal  was  really  assumed  to 
be  already  certain.  It  is  very  difficult  to  explain, 
otherwise,  the  weight  that  has  actually  been 
attached  to  arguments,  which  in  strict  logical 
form  are  quite  inconclusive.  We  have  seen  why 
they  could  not  be  conclusive;  we  are  here 
simply  trying  to  face  the  question:  Why  are 
they  felt  to  be  still  so  satisfying,  though  so 
strictly  inconclusive?  The  natural  answer  is, 
the  goal  of  the  argument  is  practically  taken  by 
us  all  as  an  immediate  certainty.  A  quite  in- 
sufficient proof  satisfies  our  intellectual  con- 
science, simply  because  we  are  already  sure  of 
the  conclusion. 

This  brings  us  to  a  fourth  suggested  line  of 
argument.  Our  only  possible  standard  of  truth 
is  in  our  own  constitution.  In  consequence,  all 
proof  of  every  kind  moves  on  a  double  assump- 


THE    MAIN    LINES   OF   ARGUMENT  205 

tion:  first,  that  the  world  is  a  sphere  of  rational 
thinking — must  satisfy  the  intellect;  second, 
that  the  world  is  a  sphere  of  rational  living — 
must  satisfy  the  whole  man.  One  might  say 
that  this  double  assumption  is  the  heart  of  the 
intention  of  the  ontological  argument,  and  sug- 
gests the  two  forms  in  which  that  argument  may 
be  stated,  or  the  double  interpretation  of  our 
necessary  constant  assumption  that  the  world  is 
a  "rational,"  or  an  "honest"  world. 

The  Hegelian  form  of  the  argument — "the 
real  is  rational" — starts  from  the  intellectual 
demand  of  our  natures;  has  for  its  test  of  truth, 
logical  consistency;  and  affirms  the  rationality 
of  the  world  in  the  simply  intellectual  sense, 
and  so  finds  the  world  a  sphere  for  rational 
thinking.  This  form  of  the  argument  asserts 
that  the  world  must  be  thinkable,  intelligible. 
It  is  by  no  means  able  to  prove  this  universal 
assertion;  but  it  simply  points  out  that  every 
bit  of  thinking,  every  single  argument,  must 
really  assume  for  its  own  justification  the  ration- 
ality— the  honesty — of  the  world  in  this  sense. 

What,  perhaps,  may  be  called  the  Lotzian 
form  of  the  argument — "that  which  is  most 
worthy  must  exist" — starts  from  the  side  of  our 
interests,  from  a  judgment  of  worth — an  essen- 
tially ethical  judgment;  it  has  for  its  test  of  truth, 


206     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

worth;  and  affirms  the  rationality  of  the  world 
not  in  the  narrower,  merely  intellectual  sense, 
but  in  the  broad  sense,  as  satisfying  the  whole 
man;  and  it,  thus,  finds  the  world  a  sphere  for 
rational  living.  It  holds,  that  is,  as  an  immedi- 
ate conviction,  that  the  world  must  be  not 
merely  construable,  thinkable  to  the  understand- 
ing as  a  chain  of  causes  and  effects,  but  a  world 
in  which  we  can  live,  and  in  which  we  can 
cherish  our  ideals — a  world  that  can  satisfy  the 
whole  man.  Paulsen  thus  states  the  position: 
"I  could  not  live,  I  could  not  breathe  and  move 
freely  in  a  world  that  is  nothing  but  an  enor- 
mous, senseless,  and  soulless  machine;  hence  I 
cannot  believe  that  it  is  such  a  machine;  hence  I 
believe  that  it  is  the  revelation  of  an  all-wise 
and  all-good  God,  even  though  my  eyes  fail  to 
see  him  and  my  understanding  comprehend 
him  not."1  A  completely  rational  world,  it  is 
here  asserted,  must  have  value,  must  go  back  to 
a  purpose  of  good.  It  must  be  worth  while.  It 
must  not  play  fast  and  loose  with  me.  Other- 
wise, I  am  left  at  cross-purposes  with  myself; 
my  ethical  and  aesthetic  demands  are  all  unmet; 
the  world  is  for  me  an  intolerable  world. 

We  are  scarcely  aware  to  what  an  extent  this 
assumption  permeates  all  our  reasoning  on  ques- 

1  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  p.  420. 


THE    MAIN    LINES   OF   ARGUMENT  207 

tions  in  any  degree  moral  and  spiritual.  All 
the  arguments  that  really  weigh  with  us  to-day, 
for  freedom,  and  for  immortality,  for  example, 
go  forward  on  the  plainly  implied  major  pre- 
mise that  the  world  is  not  absurd  and  intolerable. 
So  James  says  as  to  freedom:  "The  whole  feel- 
ing of  reality,  the  whole  sting  and  excitement 
of  our  voluntary  life,  depends  on  our  sense  that 
in  it  things  are  really  being  decided  from  one 
moment  to  another,  and  that  it  is  not  the  dull 
rattling  off  of  a  chain  that  was  forged  innumer- 
able ages  ago."2  And  he  cannot  persuade  him- 
self that  this  feeling,  which  alone  gives  reality 
and  meaning  to  life,  can  be  a  mere  illusion. 
Tennyson's  argument  as  to  immortality  goes  for- 
ward upon  a  precisely  similar  assumption: 

"My  own  dim  life  should   teach  me  this, 
That  life  shall  live  forevermore, 
Else  earth  is  darkness  at  the  core, 
And  dust  and  ashes  all  that  is." 

He  cannot  believe  that  this  awful  alternative 
is  possible. 

Underlying,  then,  all  our  rational  living,  all 
setting  of  goals  we  count  worthy,  all  thinking, 
even,  concerning  the  life  of  the  whole  man,  is 
the  initial  assumption  that  the  world  is  rational 

2  Psychology,  Briefer  Course,  p.  237. 


208     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

in  the  broadest  sense,  that  that  which  ought  to 
be  is,  that  Living  Love  is  the  source  of  all. 

Now  it  should  be  noted,  neither  of  these  two 
assumptions,  involved  in  the  assertion  of  the 
rationality  or  honesty  of  the  world,  can  be  fully 
met  and  made  thinkable,  except  by  the  existence 
of  a  living,  personal,  loving  God,  whose  reason 
and  whose  love  are  in  truth  the  sure  basis  of  all 
our  thinking  and  living.  The  so-called  eternal 
truths,  logical  or  ethical,  can  have  no  existence 
and  power  of  their  own;  they  are  finally  intel- 
ligible only  when  conceived  as  the  actual  modes 
of  activity  of  God  himself.  No  argument  of 
any  kind  for  anything  can  be  framed  that  does 
not  in  some  way  virtually  make  these  assump- 
tions of  the  reason  and  love  of  God.  The  real 
truth,  therefore,  concerning  all  our  theistic 
arguments  seems  to  be  this:  they  do  not  reach 
their  goal  at  all,  except  upon  an  assumption  that 
implies  that  the  goal  has  been  already  reached 
in  immediate  conviction.  It  is  for  just  this 
reason  that  we  are  comparatively  unaffected  by 
their  logical  defects. 

To  see,  now,  the  fundamental  nature  of  these 
two  great  assumptions  that  underlie  all  our 
thinking  and  living,  is  really  to  see  that  the 
existence  of  a  God  of  reason  and  love  is  so 
certain  and  fundamental  a  fact,  that  it  really 


THE    MAIN    LINES   OF   ARGUMENT  209 

has  to  be  assumed  in  all  thinking  and  living — 
a  fact  that  cannot  be  proved  just  because  it  is 
the  basis  of  all  proof; — the  postulate,  without 
which  we  should  ultimately  be  driven  to  give 
up  altogether  the  possibility  of  rational  thinking. 
And  we  need  to  remind  ourselves  how  often,  in 
both  scientific  and  philosophical  questions,  when 
we  try  to  think  our  terms  and  conceptions  com- 
pletely through,  we  are  driven  necessarily  be- 
yond the  finite,  if  we  are  to  avoid  plain  self- 
contradiction.  We  cannot  think  the  finite  as 
simply  finite.  The  real  reality,  as  Bradley 
points  out,  which  persistently  forces  itself  upon 
us  in  intellectual  thinking,  is  a  reality  absolutely 
consistent  and  all-embracing.  Even  science  can- 
not finally  do  without  such  a  basis,  as  Spencer's 
so-called  Unknowable  testifies. 

An  additional  reason  is  thus  given  us,  why  to 
our  ordinary  thinking  God  should  seem  pecul- 
iarly hidden,  and  his  existence  not  easily  shown. 
He  cannot  be  proved,  because  his  existence  is 
necessarily  assumed  in  all  proof.  Along  with 
the  clear  perception  of  the  inevitable  limitations 
of  the  theistic  arguments,  therefore,  the  thor- 
oughly fundamental  nature  of  the  theistic 
position  is  at  the  same  time  shown.  It  is  so 
fundamental,  that  to  relinquish  it  is  to  relinquish 
all  hope  of  rationality  in  any  part  of  our  final 


2IO     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

thinking,  and,  indeed,  to  surrender  the  logical 
bases  of  all  thinking  and  living.  The  religious 
postulate,  thus,  is  necessary  to  all  the  rest  of  life. 
Religion  may  well  be  satisfied  with  this  con- 
clusion. 

It  is  not  impossible,  however,  that  one  may 
go  a  step  farther.  Even  our  mathematical  dem- 
onstrations depend  at  every  step  upon  the  cer- 
tainty of  intuitive  insight,  and  it  is  quite  possible 
that  Schopenhauer  was  right  in  asserting  that 
so-called  mathematical  proofs  are  simply  our 
labored  attempted  justifications  of  insights  in- 
tuitively certain;  that  we  see  first,  and  prove 
afterward;  we  do  not  prove  and  then  see.  In 
a  quite  similar  sense,  it  may  be,  that  with  as 
real  a  certainty  as  our  natures  can  give  us  any- 
thing, God  is  given,  in  the  two  fundamental 
assumptions  which  have  been  seen  to  be  implicit 
in  all  our  thought  and  life,  for  they  are  neces- 
sities of  thought  and  life;  we  seem  really  to  use 
them  in  all  subordinate  thinking,  as  clearly 
given  certainties,  much  as  we  use  our  mathe- 
matical insights.  The  precise  way  in  which 
we  come  to  these  certainties  may  be  hidden  from 
us  in  both  cases,  but  they  are  not  counted  less 
certain  on  that  account.  Such  added  logical 
obscurity  as  seems  to  attach  to  this  immediate 
practical   certainty  of   God  has   been   perhaps 


THE    MAIN    LINES   OF   ARGUMENT  211 

sufficiently  accounted  for.  There  are  weighty 
reasons  why  the  real  immediate  certainty  of 
God,  upon  which  we  seem  to  be  perpetually 
counting  in  all  life  and  thought,  should  not 
reveal  itself  at  once  to  our  seeming.  The  cer- 
tainty given  us  is  like  that  of  the  moral  life.  So 
far,  as  to  the  theistic  argument. 


AS  TO  THE  PERSONAL  RELATION  TO  GOD 


XXXII 

THE  NEED  OF  THE  MODERN   MAN  MET 
ONLY  IN  CHRIST 

Surely  Herrmann  is  right  in  saying  that 
theologians  of  all  schools  may  at  least  agree  as 
to  the  general  meaning  of  personal  Christianity. 
"It  is  a  communion  of  the  soul  with  the  living 
God,  through  the  mediation  of  Christ.  Herein 
is  really  included  all  that  belongs  to  the  charac- 
teristic life  of  Christendom — revelation  and  , 
faith,  conversion  and  the  comfort  of  forgiveness, 
the  joy  of  faith  and  the  service  of  love,  lonely 
communion  with  God,  and  life  in  Christian 
fellowship."1 

Our  very  first  and  greatest  problem,  there- 
fore, on  the  positive  side,  in  dealing  with  the 
reality  of  the  spiritual  life,  is  to  make  it  clear 
just  how  the  individual  soul  may  come  into  un- 
doubted communion  with  a  living  God.  It 
needs  especially  to  be  noted  that  our  age  has 
come,  in  such  preeminent  degree,  to  scientific 
and  moral  self-consciousness,  that  for  the  men 
of  to-day  the  previous  easier  roads  into  the 
religious  life  are  in  large  degree  closed.     The 

1  Herrmann,  Communion  with  God,  Second  English  edition,  p.  9- 

215 


2l6      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

psychological  treatment,  for  example,  of  mys- 
tical experiences  has  made  it  impossible  for  us 
to  take  at  their  own  estimation  all  kinds  of 
ecstatic  states,  and  we  can  feel  no  surety  in  these 
short-cuts  to  communion  with  God  in  a  religious 
experience  that  cannot  bear  a  rational  and 
ethical  test.  With  Herrmann,  we  have  to  ask 
those  who  so  base  their  religious  conviction, 
"how  they  are  sure  they  are  really  aware  of  God 
Himself  when  they  have  those  emotions  in 
which  their  whole  nature  seems  exalted.  Our 
confidence  in  God  needs  other  support  than 
the  recollection  of  such  purely  emotional  ex- 
periences can  give."1 

Whatever  has  been  true  for  previous  genera- 
tions, and  whatever  is  still  true  for  those  who 
have  not  entered  fully  into  the  consciousness 
of  the  present  time — for  many  of  us,  our  road 
to  God  must  now  be  indubitably  rational  and 
ethical.  It  is  impossible  that  we  should  rest 
in  any  religious  experience  that  cannot  so 
justify  itself.  The  men  of  the  fully  modern 
spirit  are,  therefore,  simply  driven  to  find  their 
way  into  a  personal  communion  with  God 
through  facts  so  great  that  they  can  bear  the 
severest  rational  and  ethical  test.  And  the 
religion  that  can  fully  satisfy  the  modern  man 

1  Op.  cit.  p.  36. 


NEED  OF  MODERN  MAN  MET  ONLY  IN  CHRIST         217 

must,  thus,  build  unmistakably  on  the  great 
fact-foundation  of  man's  own  rational  and 
ethical  nature,  and  upon  a  personality  great 
enough  to  reveal  God,  and  to  bring  indubitable 
conviction  of  God's  existence  and  of  his  per- 
sonal communion  with  the  individual  soul. 

It  is  just  at  this  point  that  Christianity  has 
its  supreme  gift  to  make  to  the  man  of  to-day. 
For  the  service  of  Christianity  here  is  the  more 
priceless  and  indispensable  to  the  modern  man, 
the  more  deeply  he  has  entered  into  the  modern 
spirit.    For  the  deeper  our  moral  consciousness, 
the  greater  our  sense  of  moral  need.     In  Herr- 
mann's words,1  "We  feel  ourselves  to  be  sepa- 
rated from  God,  and  consequently  crippled  in 
our  faith  by  things  which  troubled  the  ancients 
very  little.     We  cannot   go  back   to  our   first 
simple  indifference  to  moral  demands  after  our 
conscience    has    once    been    sensible    of    them. 
Above  all,  the  knowledge  that  we  are  bound  to 
unconditional    obedience    can    never   die    away 
into  sloth  and  inactivity  after  it  has  once  dawned 
upon  us.     So  that  when  we  are  faced  by  some- 
thing that  wants  to  force  itself  on  us  as  a  Power 
over  our  entire   life,   the  doubt   arises   in   our 
minds  whether  in  it  we  really  find  something 
we  can  be  conscientiously  willing  to  obey  un- 

xOp.  cit.  p.  63. 


2l8      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

conditionally.  He  who  is  morally  free  will 
mock  at  a  religion  that  is  above  morality  just 
as  he  pities  one  that  is  beneath  it.  Therefore, 
the  only  God  that  can  reveal  Himself  to  us 
is  one  who  shows  Himself  to  us  in  our  moral 
struggle  as  the  Power  to  which  our  souls  are 
really  subject.  This  is  what  is  vouchsafed  to  us 
in  the  revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ."  This 
simply  means  that,  for  the  modern  man  who  has 
awakened  to  full  moral  self-consciousness,  many 
an  ancient  way  of  approach  to  God  is  decisively 
closed;  and  if  he  is  to  come  into  communion 
with  God  at  all,  it  must  be  by  a  manifestation 
of  God  great  enough  to  make  certain  both  the 
holiness  of  God  and  his  forgiveness  of  us. 

Now,  it  is  through  the  witness  of  the  New 
Testament  writers  that  we  find  in  Christ  for  our- 
selves a  fact  so  great,  so  transcendent,  that  we 
come  back  to  it  again  and  again  with  calm 
assurance,  to  find  in  its  simple  presence  the 
indubitable  conviction  of  the  spiritual  world, 
of  our  own  intended  destiny,  of  God,  and  of 
his  holiness  and  his  love.  Christ  does  not  merely 
tell  us  these  things — he  does  much  more —  he 
makes  us  able  to  believe  them.  He,  and  no  other 
as  he,  searches  us,  humbles  us,  assures  us,  and 
exalts  us  at  the  same  time.  Only  through  him 
do  we  come  with  assurance  into  the  great  con- 


NEED  OF  MODERN   MAN  MET  ONLY  IN  CHRIST         219 

victions,  the  great  hopes,  and  the  great  aspira- 
tions; and  these  measure  us  as  does  nothing 
else.  Only  through  him  are  we  brought  into 
living  communion  with  the  living  God.  If  I 
may  quote  Herrmann  again:  "The  most  im- 
portant thing  for  the  man  who  is  to  submit  him- 
self to  God  is  surely  that  he  should  be  absolutely 
certain  of  the  reality  of  God,  and  Jesus  does 
establish  in  us,  through  the  fact  of  his  personal 
life,  a  certainty  of  God  which  covers  every 
doubt.  When  once  he  has  attracted  us  by  the 
beauty  of  His  Person,  and  made  us  bow  before 
Him  by  its  exalted  character,  then  even  amid 
our  deepest  doubts,  that  Person  of  Jesus  will 
remain  present  with  us  as  a  thing  incomparable, 
the  most  precious  fact  in  history,  the  most 
precious  fact  our  life  contains."  Thus,  "the 
religious  life  of  the  Christian  is  inseparable 
from  vision  of  the  personal  life  of  Jesus.  That 
vision  must  be  the  Christian's  constant  com- 
panion, and  so  it  is,  as  he  finds  more  and  more 
that  in  such  vision  he  grasps  that  reality  without 
which  all  else  in  the  world  is  empty  and  deso- 
late." 


XXXIII 

THE  NEEDED  EMPHASES  IN  MODERN 
RELIGIOUS  LIFE 

If  one  asks,  now,  what  is  involved  in  these 
statements,  and  attempts  to  characterize  the 
Christian  way  to  communion  with  God,  he  will 
be  obliged  to  say  that,  for  the  fully  modern 
man,  the  way  must  be  ethical,  Christian,  social, 
biblical,  practical,  and,  in  all  these  points  alike, 
rational. 

It  must  be  ethical,  for  no  religious  experience 
can  justify  itself  to  a  man  who  has  come  to 
moral  self-consciousness,  which  does  not  offer, 
in  the  sphere  of  the  moral,  a  deepening  of  the 
moral  life.  Mere  emotions,  therefore,  however 
entrancing,  will  not  answer.  Here  lies  the  far 
reaching  significance  of  the  Reformers'  insist- 
ence that  God's  presence  is  to  be  found  in  the 
daily  calling,  and  the  sense  of  his  nearness  to  be 
won  just  there,  in  the  doing  of  the  daily  duty. 

It  must  be  Christian,  in  building,  as  we  have 
seen,  directly  on  the  fact  of  Christ  as  the  one 
fact  sufficiently  great  and  significant  to  open 
a  certain  way  to  God  for  the  modern  man. 

It  must  be  social,  because  in  the  sphere  of 

220 


NEEDED  EMPHASES  IN   MODERN  RELIGIOUS   LIFE       221 

religion,  as  in  all  other  spheres  of  value,  we  are 
almost  inevitably  introduced  through  the  wit- 
ness of  those  who  already  share  in  the  value. 
And,  doubtless,  for  some  the  religious  ex- 
perience remains  to  the  end  in  much  larger 
degree  indirect,  than  for  others.  And  for  all 
of  us  some  of  our  best  visions  of  the  spiritual 
come  through  others.  The  social  trend  of  the 
Christian's  communion  with  God  is  seen,  too, 
in  the  indispensable  fellowship  with  the  Church 
and  with  the  great  prophetic  seers  of  history, 
as  well  as  in  the  inevitable  way  in  which  the 
kingdom  of  God  must  go  forward  by  the  witness, 
given  from  heart  to  heart,  of  what  men  have 
found  Chirst  to  be  to  them. 

It  must  be  biblical,  not  as  building  on  a  book, 
but  in  just  so  far  as  the  Bible  is  regarded  not 
as  a  record  of  doctrines  or  history  to  be  authori- 
tatively accepted,  but  as  a  book  of  honest  testi- 
mony to  experience.  Its  supreme  value  lies  just 
here.  For  the  testimony  of  another  is  our  chief 
road  to  enlargement  of  life.  Most  of  all,  it  is 
through  such  simple,  honest  witness  that  the 
New  Testament  puts  us  face  to  face  with  the 
redeeming  personality  of  Christ.  Whatever  our 
theories  about  the  Bible,  it  is  not  as  compelling 
authority,  but  as  simple,  honest  witness  that  the 
New  Testament  brings  us  emancipating  power. 


222      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

In  another's  words,  "The  inner  life  of  Jesus  is 
stamped  on  the  testimony  of  men  who  have 
been  set  free  by  him.  In  this  way  has  it  become 
a  force  in  history,  and  in  no  other  way  was  that 
possible.  Hence  we  can  lay  hold  on  it  and  make 
it  ours  only  when  we  let  the  witness  of  his  dis- 
ciples lay  hold  on  us."  And  that  witness  the 
Christian  "finds  in  Scripture  as  nowhere  else." 

Treated  as  a  book  throbbing  thus  with  per- 
sonal life — as  a  book  of  honest  testimony  to 
experience  broad  and  deep,  in  the  moral  and 
spiritual  life — and  approached  through  a  true 
historical  method,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the 
Bible  will  increasingly  prove  what  the  free 
critic,  Edmond  Scherer,  claimed:  "The  Bible 
will  ever  be  the  book  of  power,  the  marvellous 
book,  the  book  above  all  others.  It  will  ever 
be  the  light  of  the  mind  and  the  bread  of  the 
soul.  Neither  the  superstitions  of  some,  nor  the 
irreligious  negations  of  others  have  been  able  to 
do  it  harm.  If  there  is  anything  certain  in  the 
world,  it  is  that  the  destinies  of  the  Bible  are 
linked  with  the  destinies  of  holiness  on  earth." 

The  modern  emphasis,  again,  must  be  prac- 
tical, as  wrought  out  in  experience,  and  submit- 
ting not  only  gladly,  but  of  deliberate  purpose, 
to  the  test  of  experiment  in  life.  The  experi- 
ment here  is  the  endeavor  to  find  whether  the 


NEEDED  EMPHASES  IN  MODERN  RELIGIOUS  LIFE       223 

deepest  laws  and  trends  of  our  being  do  unmis- 
takably point  to  God.  And  it  is  in  this  practical 
way  that  we  must  apply,  each  for  himself,  the 
psychological  and  sociological  tests  which  have 
already  been  considered.  Do  the  Christian  con- 
ception of  the  spiritual  life  and  the  honest 
response  to  the  inner  life  of  Christ  give  oppor- 
tunity for  the  highest  and  fullest  personal  self- 
expression  and  personal  association,  justifying 
themselves,  thus,  rationally  and  ethically?  If 
the  individual  finds  himself  compelled,  as  I 
certainly  do,  to  return  an  unhesitating  affirma- 
tive to  this  question,  then  he  will  simply  be 
saying  that  the  deepest  laws  and  trends  of 
human  nature  reach  their  fullest  justification 
and  growth  only  upon  the  Christian  assumption. 


XXXIV. 

THE   METHOD   OF  THE   SPIRITUAL   LIFE 

The  consideration  of  these  needed  emphases 
in  modern  religious  life,  itself,  suggests  the  two 
great  positive  ways,  already  considered,  of  com- 
ing into  assured  personal  relation  to  God.  They 
are  not  really  two  ways,  but  rather  two  aspects 
of  our  one  great  method  of  finding  the  reality 
of  the  spiritual. 

Starting  from  the  analogy  of  the  way  in  which 
we  come  into  all  the  great  values  of  life,  we 
may  say  that  to  have  a  real  and  significant 
spiritual  life  simply  requires  that  we  should  put 
ourselves  in  the  presence  of  the  greatest  facts 
of  the  spiritual  world,  in  voluntary  surrender 
to  them,  just  so  far  as  they  command  our  inner 
allegiance.  This  will  mean,  above  all,  that  we 
put  ourselves  steadily,  persistently  into  the  closest 
possible  relation  with  the  inner  life  of  Christ, 
giving  that  life  full  opportunity  to  make  upon 
us  its  own  legitimate  impression,  to  communi- 
cate to  us  Christ's  own  sense  of  the  reality  of 
God  and  of  the  spiritual  life.  Only  so  shall  we 
be  following  the  prime  law  for  coming  into  all 

the  greatest  values  of  life — staying  persistently 

224 


THE   METHOD  OF  THE   SPIRITUAL   LIFE  225 

in  the  presence  of  the  best  we  know  in  the  realm 
of  the  spiritual,  with  honest  response  to  its 
natural,  inevitable  appeal.  This  will  bring  us 
surely,  increasingly,  into  Christ's  life  of  love 
to  God  and  love  to  men.  We  need  here  par- 
ticularly to  remember  how  inextricably  the  sense 
of  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  is  bound  up  with 
persistent  loyalty  to  the  ethical  demands,  just 
so  far  as  known. 

Starting  from  the  analogy  of  personal  rela- 
tions, we  may  say  that  to  have  a  real  and 
significant  spiritual  life  requires  that  we  should 
honestly  recognize  that  the  spiritual  life  is 
essentially  a  life  of  personal  relations  with  men 
and  with  God,  and  should  act  accordingly. 
That  is,  we  must  simply  follow  the  laws  of  the 
spiritual  life.  This  means  that  we  must  steadily 
fulfil  the  conditions  of  a  deepening  personal 
relation  with  God  and  with  men;  only  being 
sure  that  we  do  not  transfer  to  God  the  limita- 
tions of  the  finite.  The  conditions  of  the  spirit- 
ual life  can  thus  be  pointed  out,  and  fulfilled, 
and  we  may  count  upon  the  result.  Every  bit 
of  experience  in  the  human  relations  throws  light 
upon  the  divine;  all  growth  in  the  divine  life 
is  immediate  gain  for  the  human  relations.  The 
ethical  and  religious  are  bound  up  together,  and 
all  life  becomes  one — a  life  of  learning  to  love. 
15 


226      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

This  is  simply  putting  to  practical  test  Christ's 
hypothesis  of  love  as  the  essence  of  life.  The 
method  confronts  us,  that  is,  with  the  plain 
challenge:  Go  forward,  in  your  religious  life, 
in  steady  fulfilment  of  the  conditions  of  a 
deepening  personal  relation  man-ward  and  God- 
ward,  and  you  will  find  the  relation  to  God 
becoming  increasingly  real  and  satisfying.  But 
as  soon  as  one  seeks  honestly  to  carry  out  this 
counsel  in  relation  to  God,  he  sees  at  once  that 
every  deepening  personal  relation  requires  mu- 
tual self-revelation  on  the  part  of  the  persons 
concerned.  He  will  seek,  therefore,  to  build 
the  relation  to  God  upon  the  fullest  revelation 
of  God.  This  he  must  naturally  find  in  the 
world's  most  significant  personality,  Christ; 
and  in  the  presence  of  that  completest  self- 
revelation  of  God,  he  goes  forward  in  his  ful- 
filment of  the  conditions  of  a  deepening  friend- 
ship with  God. 

The  two  methods,  thus,  both  necessarily  build 
upon  close  and  persistent  association  with  the 
life  of  Christ,  as  the  greatest  spiritual  fact  of 
the  world,  and  the  most  significant  self-revela- 
tion of  God.  Both  emphasize  the  need  of 
honest  response  to  the  best  we  know.  Both 
count  upon  the  appeal  and  the  inevitable  con- 
tagion of  Christ's  own  life.    But  the  laws  of  the 


THE   METHOD  OF  THE   SPIRITUAL   LIFE  227 

growing  life  are  most  clearly  and  definitely  in- 
dicated as  those  of  a  deepening  personal  rela- 
tion.1 

1  Attention  may  well  be  called  just  here  to  the  peculiar  value  of 
Drummond's  address  on  "The  Changed  Life"  as  at  least  a  partial 
illustration  of  the  use  of  both  methods. 


AS  TO  PARTICULAR  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINES 


XXXV 

DOCTRINE  AS   EXPRESSION   OF   EXPERIENCE 

WITH  CHRIST 

If  one  turns,  now,  in  the  third  place,  in  ful- 
filment of  the  positive  problem  of  seeking 
reality  for  the  spiritual  life,  from  the  rational 
argument  for  the  existence  of  God,  and  the  prob- 
lem of  personal  relation  to  God,  to  ask  for  the 
way  in  which  single  Christian  doctrines  may 
become  to  him  most  real,  he  must  see  that  this 
can  be  possible  for  the  modern  man  only  as 
these  individual  doctrines  are  associated  in  the 
closest  way  with  assured  fact  and  undoubted 
personal  experience. 

Has  not  the  time  fully  come  when  we  are  to 
say  unhesitatingly  that  any  manual  of  vital  and 
even  true  theology  must  be,  at  the  same  time, 
a  manual  of  practical  religion?  For  in  any 
inquiry  concerning  single  Christian  doctrines, 
we  are  only  asking:  What  does  such  an  assured 
relation  to  God  in  Christ,  in  the  realm  of  the 
morally  infinite,  mean  as  to  God,  as  to  Christ, 
as  to  men  and  their  redemption?  The  indi- 
vidual  doctrines,    that   is,   must  grow   directly 

231 


232      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

out  of  the  individual's  experience  of  communion 
with  God;  grow  without  pretense,  and  in  all 
honesty,  yet  with  modest  open-mindedness  as  to 
the  experience  of  others,  just  as  one  tries  to  keep 
both  this  honest  and  modest  attitude  in  the  realm 
of  art  and  literary  criticism. 

The  individual  doctrine,  too,  must  not  only 
grow  naturally  out  of  the  individual's  own  ex- 
perience, but,  based  on  that  experience,  it  must 
come  to  the  man  with  assured  conviction.  In 
the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  the  Christian 
must  see  that  he  has  relation  to  undoubted  fact. 
And  that  means,  first,  that  he  must  find  in 
Christ  not  merely — what  he  may  be  thoroughly 
convinced  that  he  finds  in  the  case  of  a  given 
portrait  or  story — a  sure  reflex  of  life,  but, 
rather,  the  sense  of  God  as  now  reaching  him 
in  Christ,  because  the  inner  spirit  of  the  life 
of  Christ  is  found  to  be  in  the  highest  degree 
rational  and  ethical,  both  in  itself  and  in  its 
implications. 

And  the  Christian  conviction  means,  in  the 
second  place,  that  the  Christian  finds  in  Christ, 
again,  not  merely  that  which  he  feels  that  he 
could  not  produce  out  of  his  own  resources,  as 
one  has  said,  but  rather  that  he  finds  in  Christ 
the  present,  undoubted  assurance  and  call  of 
God  and  the  spiritual  world,  just  as,  upon  the 


EXPRESSION   OF   EXPERIENCE   WITH   CHRIST  233 

Christian  view,  we  feel  the  will  of  God  in  every 
demand  of  duty. 

It  follows  that  those  doctrines  will  seem  to 
us  inevitable  and  Christian,  which  grow,  in  just 
this  indubitable  and  individual  way,  out  of  a 
communion  with  God  which  we  cannot  question. 
But  this  will  also  mean,  in  turn,  that,  while 
doubtless  certain  Christian  doctrines  follow  more 
directly  than  others  from  the  Christian  experi- 
ence, we  shall  not  be  able  consistently  to  draw 
hard  and  fast  lines  between  the  doctrines,  as  the 
full  followers  of  Ritschl  seem  inclined  to  do. 
If  doctrine  is  simply  the  outcome  and  expres- 
sion of  experience,  then  what  we  shall  be  able 
to  reach  in  doctrine  will  depend  upon  the 
breadth  and  depth  of  our  experience.  It  would 
be  hazardous,  for  example,  for  us  to  set  the  exact 
limit  of  assured  doctrine  that  might  grow  out 
of  the  depth  and  clearness  of  the  consciousness 
of  Christ.  And  with  every  true  Christian  we 
are  dealing  with  growing  life.  Therefore,  upon 
the  very  conception  of  doctrine  which  we  are 
urging,  the  growing  life  ought  to  mean  growing 
doctrine. 

Is  Herrmann,  for  example,  perfectly  clear 
as  to  the  lines  of  separation  between  those 
doctrines  which  are  a  direct  expression  of  a 
personal  experience  of  God's  self-revelation  to 


234      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

us  in  Christ,  and  those  which  are  "a  thought 
or  doctrine  arising  from  and  expressing  faith 
in  our  redemption,"  and  those  which  he  regards 
as  speculative  additions  (as  the  preexistence  of 
Christ,  theories  of  the  atonement,  etc.)?  And 
where  do  we  find  the  doctrines,  which  express 
the  consciousness  that  "the  Christian  life  con- 
tains depths  which  cannot  be  fathomed,"  and 
those  which  are  "corollaries"  from  Christian 
experience?  Are  his  distinctions*  clear?  On 
his  own  theory,  can  he  be  so  sure  in  the  draw- 
ing of  these  sharp  lines?  Is  it  not  quite  certain 
that  some  doctrines  would  seem  speculative  for 
some,  and  for  others  will  seem  to  be  directly 
connected  with  their  experience?  And  there 
will  be,  likewise,  differences  for  the  same  indi- 
vidual at  different  periods  in  his  growth.  May 
not  growing  experience  of  the  meaning  of 
Christ  make  some  further  propositions  seem  like 
immediate  expressions  of  one's  faith?  Let  one 
think,  for  example,  of  the  way  in  which  John 
and  Paul  both  seem  to  have  come  to  their 
thought  of  Christ's  preexistence;  or,  still  better, 
if  the  doctrine  is  to  be  ascribed  to  Christ  him- 
self, of  the  way  in  which  we  may  suppose  it 
arose  in  Christ's  own  consciousness. 

In   this   attempt  to   express   in   rational    and 
definite  statements  the  content  of  the  Christian 


EXPRESSION   OF   EXPERIENCE  WITH   CHRIST  235 

experience,  it  seems  evident  that  we  must  make 
our  ideal  at  least  a  final  unity;  though  this 
final  unity,  doubtless,  is  to  be  sought  with  the 
most  careful  avoidance  of  common  and  serious 
errors  at  this  point.  That  is,  in  the  endeavor 
after  unity  in  his  own  thought-expression  of  his 
Christian  faith,  one  must  steadily  avoid  the 
mistakes  of  dogmatism  concerning  any  single 
doctrine,  of  putting  all  doctrines  on  a  level,  of 
making  all  those  doctrines  of  various  degrees, 
which  we  seem  to  ourselves  to  have  reached,  into 
a  test  for  others,  and  especially  of  using  any 
doctrinal  statements  as  a  way  to  life,  instead  of 
simply  the  expression  of  the  life  already  there. 

As  to  this  last  point,  however,  the  Christian 
needs  continually  to  remember  that  life,  too, 
grows  through  clear  and  definite  expression, 
even  in  thought;  although,  no  doubt,  in  life  and 
its  complex  experience  there  is  much  that  must 
always  transcend  such  expression.  But  it  is  a 
lazy,  and  in  my  judgment  a  finally  immoral, 
way  for  the  Christian  simply  to  rest  back  upon 
a  more  or  less  emotional  experience,  which  he 
refuses  to  try,  either  for  himself  or  for  others, 
to  express  in  clear  and  definite  thought  as  well 
as  in  action. 

Once  more,  with   reference  to  all  the  indi- 
vidual doctrines   we  should  be  able  in  much  to 


236      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

cut  under  questions  of  merely  historical  criti- 
cism, or  of  philosophical  speculation,  in  recog- 
nition both  of  the  fundamental  likeness  and  of 
the  unique  contribution  of  the  Christian  experi- 
ence, through  undoubted  relation  to  fact  in  that 
experience. 

Let  us  ask,  then,  just  how  certainty  might 
come  to  one,  as  to  any  doctrine,  through  the 
facts  of  his  religious  experience. 


XXXVI 

ILLUSTRATED  IN  THE  DOCTRINE  OF 
PERSONAL   IMMORTALITY 

To  take  a  single  example,  how  has  Christ 
really  proved  himself  to  be  the  one  great  source 
of  faith  in  immortality,  just  as  he  is  the  great 
source  of  our  idea  of  God  and  of  our  faith  in 
God?  What,  indeed,  in  this  modern  day  is  the 
ground  of  the  hope  of  immortality  for  most  of 
those  who  hold  it  vitally  and  strongly?  In 
simple  truth  it  would  seem  that  the  answer  to 
this  last  question  must  be  that  the  primary 
ground  of  our  hope  is  in  Christ,  not  in  philos- 
ophy, not  in  science,  not  in  any  other  religion. 
These  may  or  may  not  seem  corroborative.  But, 
in  any  case,  we  do  not  build  primarily  upon 
them.  They  are  simply  not  able  to  give  that 
certain  conviction  for  which  we  seek. 

Harnack's  statement  upon  this  point  can 
hardly  be  doubted:  "Whatever  may  have 
happened  at  the  grave  [of  Christ]  and  in  the 
matter  of  the  appearances,  one  thing  is  certain: 
This  grave  was  the  birthplace  of  the  indestruc- 
tible belief  that  death  is  vanquished,  that  there  is 
a  life  eternal.     It  is  useless  to  cite  Plato;    it  is 

237 


238      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

useless  to  point  to  the  Persian  religion,  and  the 
ideas  and  literature  of  later  Judaism.  All  that 
would  have  perished  and  has  perished;  but  the 
certainty  of  the  resurrection  and  of  a  life  eternal 
which  is  bound  up  with  the  grave  in  Joseph's 
garden  has  not  perished,  and  on  the  conviction 
that  Jesus  lives  we  still  base  those  hopes  of 
citizenship  in  an  Eternal  City  which  make  our 
earthly  life  worth  living  and  tolerable.  'He 
delivered  them  who  through  fear  of  death  were 
all  their  lifetime  subject  to  bondage,'  as  the 
writer  of  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  confesses. 
That  is  the  point.  And  although  there  be  ex- 
ceptions to  its  sway,  wherever,  despite  all  the 
weight  of  nature,  there  is  a  strong  faith  in  the 
infinite  value  of  the  soul;  wherever  death  has 
lost  its  terrors;  wherever  the  sufferings  of  the 
present  are  measured  against  a  future  of  glory, 
this  feeling  of  life  is  bound  up  with  the  convic- 
tion that  Jesus  Christ  has  passed  through  death, 
that  God  has  awakened  him  and  raised  him  to 
life  and  glory."1 

If  in  fact,  then,  the  great  ground  of  our  faith 
in  immortality  is  the  personality  of  Christ,  let 
us  ask  further,  Why  is  it  Christ?  Just  how  is 
it  that  our  faith  in  immortality  builds  so  directly 
upon  him?     Not  because  Christ  has  much  to 

1  What  is  Christianity?  p.  162. 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSONAL  IMMORTALITY  239 

say  about  heavenly  rewards;  not  because  of 
much  direct  teaching;  though  giving,  I  think, 
straightforward  assurance,  he  has,  in  fact,  done 
little  to  satisfy  our  insatiate  curiosity  here.  Not 
primarily,  either,  because  of  the  resurrection 
evidence,  however  we  may  estimate  that.  For 
myself,  for  reasons  into  which  I  need  not  here 
go,  I  think  there  are  more  difficulties  in  setting 
aside  the  plain  New  Testament  belief  in  the 
objective  resurrection  of  Christ  than  most  of  our 
critics  seem  to  realize.  I  have  small  faith  in 
a  gospel  emptied  of  facts.  And  I  share  here 
Professor  Mathews'  expressed  conviction  of  the 
genuine  religious  value  of  the  historical  fact 
of  the  resurrection.1  But,  at  the  same  time,  I 
cannot  doubt  that  we  cannot  and  do  not  build 
our  faith  in  immortality  primarily  upon  the 
historical  evidence  for  the  bodily  resurrection  of 
Jesus,  even  where  we  are  able  fully  to  accept  it. 
We  do  not  believe  in  Christ's  Lordship  over 
life  and  death  because  we  believe  in  the  his- 
torical evidence  for  his  resurrection.  Rather 
this  evidence  has  with  us  the  weight  it  does, 
because  we  are  already  convinced  of  his  Lord- 
ship in  the  moral  and  spiritual  world. 

Our   faith   in    immortality,    that   is,    is   built 

1  See  his  very  suggestive   Chapter   III,   in   The  Church   and  the 
Changing  Order,  pp.  47  ff. 


24O      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

directly  upon  Christ,  just  because  of  the  spirit 
of  his  life.  He  seems  himself  to  live  in  the 
very  atmosphere  of  the  assurance  of  immor- 
tality, in  the  atmosphere  of  eternity.  He  expects 
it.  He  cannot  be  disappointed,  we  feel.  But, 
more  than  that,  eternity  fits  into  that  most  per- 
fect life  of  trust  and  love.  It  is  harmonious  with 
it.  His  life  seems  to  us  to  have  an  eternal 
quality.  We  cannot  think  of  it  as  of  merely 
temporary  significance.    It  must  abide. 

And  so  Harnack  seems  justified  in  continu- 
ing: "What  else  can  we  believe  but  that  the 
earliest  disciples  also  found  the  ultimate  founda- 
tion of  their  faith  in  the  living  Lord  to  be  the 
strength  which  had  gone  out  from  him?  It  was 
a  life  never  to  be  destroyed  which  they  felt  to 
be  going  out  from  him;  only  for  a  brief  span 
of  time  could  his  death  stagger  them;  the 
strength  of  the  Lord  prevailed  over  everything; 
God  did  not  give  him  over  to  death;  he  lives 
as  the  first-fruits  of  those  who  have  fallen  asleep. 
It  is  not  by  any  speculative  ideas  of  philosophy 
but  by  the  vision  of  Jesus'  life  and  death  and 
by  the  feeling  of  his  imperishable  union  with 
God  that  mankind,  so  far  as  it  believes  in  these 
things,  has  attained  to  that  certainty  of  eternal 
life  for  which  it  was  meant,  and  which  it  dimly 
discerns — eternal  life  in  time  and  beyond  time. 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSONAL  IMMORTALITY  24I 

This  feeling  first  established  faith  in  the  value 
of  personal  life.  But  of  every  attempt  to  dem- 
onstrate the  certainty  of  'immortality'  by  logical 
process,  we  may  say  in  the  words  of  the  poet: 

'Believe  and  venture:    as  for  pledges, 
The  gods  give  none.' 

Belief  in  the  living  Lord  and  in  a  life  eternal 
is  the  act  of  the  freedom  which  is  born  of  God."1 

To  like  import,  Matheson  speaks  of  "the  im- 
possible consequences  of  a  denied  future."  "If 
there  be  no  immortality,  Christ  is  dead — the 
purest,  the  fairest,  the  loveliest  life  that  ever 
breathed  has  become  less  than  the  napkin,  less 
than  the  grave-clothes,  less  than  the  sepulchre.' 
It  is  to  Paul  an  impossible  consequence.  He 
cannot  think  of  Christ  as  dead.  He  says,  'If 
Christ  be  dead,  death  must  be  a  delusion.'  Did 
you  never  feel  this  experience?  You  parted 
with  a  friend  an  hour  ago,  and  the  next  hour 
you  heard  that  he  was  dead;  you  said  'Impos- 
sible!' And  when  it  was  confirmed,  you  said 
again  'Impossible!  if  he  be  dead,  then  death  is 
not  to  die.  I  must  have  misnamed  it,  misread 
it,  mistaken  the  inscription  on  its  doorway. 
Death  henceforth  is  a  gate  of  life  to  me.' 

"Son  of  Man,  whenever  I  doubt  of  life,  I 
think  of  Thee.    Nothing  is  so  impossible  as  that 

1Op.  cit.  p.  163. 

16 


242     THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

Thou  shouldst  be  dead.  I  can  imagine  the  hills 
to  dissolve  in  vapor,  and  the  stars  to  melt  in 
smoke,  and  the  rivers  to  empty  themselves  in 
sheer  exhaustion;  but  I  feel  no  limit  in  Thee. 
Thou  never  grovvest  old  to  me.  Last  century 
is  old,  last  year  is  old,  last  season  is  an  obsolete 
fashion;  but  Thou  art  not  obsolete.  Thou  art 
abreast  of  all  the  centuries,  nay,  Thou  goest 
before  them  like  the  star.  I  have  never  come 
up  with  Thee,  modern  as  I  am.  Thy  picture  is 
at  home  in  everv  land.  A  thousand  have  fallen 
at  its  side,  but  it  has  kept  its  bloom;  old  Jeru- 
salem, old  Rome,  new  Rome — it  has  been  young 
amid  them  all.  Therefore,  when  oppressed  by 
the  sight  of  death,  I  shall  turn  to  Thee.  I  shall 
see  my  immortality  in  Thee.  I  shall  read  the 
possibilities  of  my  soul  in  Thee.  I  shall  measure 
the  promise  of  my  manhood  by  Thee.  I  shall 
comfort  myself  by  the  impossible  conclusion  'If 
there  be  no  immortality,  Christ  is  dead.'  " 

We  build,  then,  first  of  all  and  chiefly,  upon 
the  essential  spirit  of  Christ's  own  life.  And 
we  find  this  sense  of  the  immediate  perception 
of  the  eternal  quality  of  the  life  of  Christ  con- 
firming our  faith  in  our  own  immortality,  be- 
cause this  undeniable  quality  in  his  life  means 
that  he  is  the  supreme  artist  in  living,  and 
that  we  have  reason,  therefore,  to  trust  his  moral 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSONAL  IMMORTALITY  243 

and  spiritual  sanity  and  insight,  both  for  him- 
self and  for  others. 

We  remind  ourselves,  besides,  of  his  express 
assurance.  The  eschatological  note  in  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus,  whether  urged  as  a  reproach  or  as 
praise,  seems,  in  any  case,  unmistakable.  It  is 
hard  to  see  how  one  can  question  that  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  looks  to  a  future  life  for  his  dis- 
ciples as  well  as  for  himself.  And  this  express 
assurance,  coming  from  such  a  personality  as 
Christ's,  deservedly  carries  the  greatest  weight. 

And,  when  one  turns  to  the  different  elements 
in  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  he  not  only  finds  noth- 
ing inharmonious  with  this  conviction  of  the 
immortal  life,  but  every  bit  of  the  rest  of  the 
teaching  seems  rather  to  demand  it.  His  one 
great  central  message  of  God  as  Father  re- 
quires it.  For  that  would  seem  first  of  all 
to  mean  that  our  life,  as  children  of  God,  is  in 
him  and  must  deepen  as  our  personal  relation 
to  him  deepens.  Quite  surely,  as  Miinsterberg 
contends,  one  does  not  care  for  mere  extension 
in  space  as  dead  space,  nor  for  senseless  exten- 
sion in  time,  like  changeless  stones.  But  that 
seems  to  me  a  rather  barren  concession,  and  not 
at  all  to  settle  the  question  of  the  value  of  a 
continued,  steadily  deepening,  ever  more  and 
more  significant  personal  relation  to  God  and  to 


244      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

other  persons.  Has  the  life  so  far  been  of  value? 
Then  I  am  quite  unable  to  understand  how  it 
can  be  thought  that  its  continuance  can  mean 
nothing. 

What  is,  indeed,  the  meaning  of  the  eternal 
God  as  Father,  if  there  are  no  abiding  children? 
Is  it  not  right  into  this  depth  that  Christ  looks, 
when  he  says,  "God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead, 
but  of  the  living"?  The  Father  cannot  mock 
his  children,  and  cannot  disappoint  them.  His 
own  life  is  the  eternal  life,  and  it  is  the  very 
center  of  Christ's  teaching  that  God  opens  the 
sharing  of  exactly  that  life  to  all  his  children. 

And,  again,  is  it  not  of  the  essence  of  Christ's 
message  as  a  gospel  that  it  is  tidings  of  the 
eternal,  that  it  is  assurance  of  the  abiding,  as 
over  against  the  temporal  and  passing?  "He 
that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth  forever." 
Is  Christ's  message  not  good  news,  just  for  the 
reason  that  it  opens  a  personal  relation  to  the 
eternal  God,  and  that  man's  life,  therefore,  is 
knit  up  with  the  very  life  of  the  Eternal? 

Christ's  ethical  insistence,  moreover,  his  ap- 
peal to  the  individual  sense  of  responsibility  and 
accountability,  his  summing  up  of  the  law  and 
of  all  religion  and  of  all  life  in  love — what  is 
all  this  but  just  so  much  repeated  emphasis 
on  the  essential  significance  of  the  individual 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSONAL  IMMORTALITY  245 

personality,  without  which  none  of  these  things 
are  possible?  What  does  character  itself  mean, 
else?  And  how  can  one  assert  the  eternal  nature 
of  the  ethical,  without  at  the  same  time  asserting 
the  enduring  existence  of  individual   persons? 

How  closely  our  faith  in  immortality  is  linked 
with  the  ethical,  may  be  seen  in  the  fact  that 
the  immortal  hope  is  likely  to  go  up  or  down 
in  us  with  our  own  moral  state.  When  our  life 
is  most  surely  of  the  quality  that  ought  to  endure, 
we  find  it  easier  to  believe  in  immortality.  And 
it  is  exactly  through  Christ,  it  should  be  noted, 
that  we  are  chiefly  and  most  surely  brought  on 
into  character  and  into  belief  in  it.  Thus,  just 
because  Christ  has  not  only  within  himself  a 
character  which  has  the  quality  of  the  eternal, 
and  a  teaching  which  implies  at  every  point  the 
immortal  life,  but  because  he  is  himself  the  one 
supreme  inspirer  to  character,  is  our  faith  in 
immortality  connected  directly  with  Christ. 

Christ's  doctrine  of  unlimited  self-sacrifice 
is  another  element  of  his  teaching  which  implies 
most  assuredly  the  abiding  value  of  men.  For 
there  is  simply  no  way  of  rationally  justifying 
either  the  prodigal  pouring  out  of  his  own  life, 
or  that  which  he  demands  from  others,  except 
upon  the  assumption  of  the  abiding  and  inesti- 
mable value  of  men  as  children  of  God,  as  beings 


246      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

who  can.  look  forward  to  a  life  to  whose  growth 
in  breadth  and  significance  no  limits  can  be  put. 

Everywhere,  that  is,  in  Christ's  teaching  one 
strikes  the  eternal  note,  that  means  nothing 
except  as  an  appeal  to  an  abiding  personality. 
What  meaning  can  it  have  for  men,  and  what 
meaning  in  harmony  with  the  teaching  of  Christ, 
that  some  impersonal  outcome  is  left  or  lost  in 
the  Infinite?  Who  cares,  whether  God  or  man? 
The  only  essential  significance  of  life  we  know 
lies  in  personal  relations.  What  could  be  the 
will  result,  the  character  result,  apart  from  con- 
tinuing individual  personality  in  the  sense  of  a 
genuine  self-consciousness  and  of  individual 
initiative? 

The  real  ground,  thus,  of  faith  in  immortality 
is  Christ  himself,  his  character,  his  teaching,  his 
death.  Our  faith  does  not  primarily  depend 
on  what  we  can  persuade  ourselves  to  believe 
about  the  resurrection  and  its  evidence,  signifi- 
cant as  I  believe  that  to  be.  Quite  independently 
of  that,  we  feel  forced  to  believe  that  Christ 
has  the  power  of  the  endless  life  in  him,  in  any 
case;  and  this  way  of  getting  at  it  is  open  to  all, 
and  means  life  and  the  assurance  of  a  direct 
relation  with  the  living  God.  There  is,  thus,  a 
very  real  sense  in  which  we  are  able,  through 
the  majesty  of  the  inner  spirit  of  Christ  himself, 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSONAL  IMMORTALITY  247 

as  revealed  in  the  entire  sweep  of  his  life  and 
verified  in  present  experience,  to  cut  under  all 
questions  of  merely  historical  criticism,  that  can 
reasonably  be  regarded  as  at  all  open,  or  of 
philosophical  speculation,  and  to  reach  an  as- 
surance grounded  as  deeply  as  assurance  can  be 
grounded,  in  the  strength  of  our  own  rational 
and  ethical  convictions  as  we  face  the  fact  of 
Christ.  Is  faith  in  immortality  an  outworn 
belief?  If  so,  how  does  it  come  to  be  bound 
up  so  indissolubly  with  the  transcendent  living, 
and  the  transcendent  moral  and  spiritual  insight 
of  Christ? 

So  Harnack  can  say:1  "I  admit  that  if  his- 
torical research  had  proved  that  he  was  an 
apocalyptic  enthusiast  or  visionary,  whose  image 
and  utterances  were  advanced  to  the  level  of 
pure  aim  and  lofty  thought  only  by  the  refining 
influence  of  later  times,  it  would  be  another 
matter.  But  who  has  proved  that,  and  who 
could  prove  it?  For  besides  the  four  written 
Gospels,  we  possess  a  fifth,  unwritten;  and  in 
many  respects  its  voice  is  clearer  and  more 
effective  than  those  of  the  other  four — I  mean 
the  united  testimony  of  the  first  Christian  com- 
munity. It  enables  us  to  gather  what  was  the 
prevailing  impression  made  by  this  personality, 

1  Christianity  and  History,  pp.  56-59. 


248      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

and  in  what  sense  his  disciples  understood  his 
words  and  the  testimony  which  he  gave  of  him- 
self. It  is  true  that  his  clothes — the  outward 
form  of  his  doctrine — were  part  of  the  heritage; 
but  the  great  and  simple  truths  which  he  came 
to  preach,  the  personal  sacrifice  which  he  made, 
and  his  victory  in  death,  were  what  formed  the 
new  life  of  his  community;  and  when  the 
apostle  Paul  with  divine  power  described  this 
life  as  a  life  in  the  Spirit,  and  again  as  a  life 
in  love,  he  was  only  giving  back  the  light  which 
had  dawned  upon  him  in  and  through  Jesus 
Christ  his  Lord.  This  is  a  simple  matter  of 
fact,  which  no  historical  criticism  can  in  any 
way  alter.  All  that  it  can  do  is  to  place  it  in 
a  clearer  light,  and  so  increase  our  reverence 
for  the  divinity  which  was  revealed  in  radiance 
in  a  Son  of  Abraham,  amid  the  wreck  and  refuse 
of  a  narrow  world.  Let  the  plain  Bible-reader 
continue  to  read  his  Gospels  as  he  has  hitherto 
read  them;  for  in  the  end  the  critic  cannot  read 
them  otherwise.  What  the  one  regards  as  their 
true  gist  and  meaning,  the  other  must  acknowl- 
edge to  be  such.  But  the  facts,  the  facts!  I  do 
not  know  how  there  can  be  a  greater  fact  than 
the  one  which  I  have  just  been  describing.  By 
the  side  of  it,  what  can  any  historical  detail 
signify?" 


DOCTRINE  OF  PERSONAL  IMMORTALITY  249 

Harnack  thus  suggests  that,  standing  upon 
a  broad  basis  of  secure  historical  fact,  one  may 
find  the  personality  of  Christ  continually  verify- 
ing itself  to  him  anew,  through  its  thorough- 
going consistency  with  our  deepest  rational  and 
ethical  convictions.  That  personality  "finds" 
us  more  surely  than  any  other  fact  of  the  world; 
fits,  as  does  no  other,  the  highest  and  worthiest 
in  us.  Greater  proof  than  this  it  is  hard  to  ask, 
or  to  give. 

In  Harnack's  words,  once  more:1  "Eighteen 
hundred  years  separate  us  from  this  history; 
but  if  we  seriously  ask  ourselves  what  it  is  that 
has  given  us  the  courage  to  believe  that  in  the 
history  of  the  world  God  prevails,  not  only  by 
moral  and  intellectual  forces,  but  by  His  pres- 
ence in  the  midst  of  it;  if  we  ask  what  it  is 
that  leads  us  to  believe  in  an  eternal  life — our 
answer  is,  that  we  make  bold  to  believe  it  in 
reliance  upon  Christ.  Jesus  lives,  and  with  him 
I  live  also.  He  is  the  firstborn  among  many 
brothers;  he  is  our  surety  for  the  reality  of  a 
future  world.  So  it  is,  then,  that  God  speaks 
to  us  through  him.  It  was  testified  of  Christ 
that  he  was  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life; 
as  such  he  is  still  revealed  to  our  inmost  feeling, 
and   therein    consists   his    presence   to   us.      As 

1  Op.   fit.   pp.  48-49. 


250      THE  SEEMING  UNREALITY  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

surely  as  everything  depends  on  the  soul  finding 
God  and  becoming  one  with  Him,  so  surely  is 
he  the  true  Saviour,  Guide,  and  Lord  who  leads 
the  soul  to  God." 

It  is  by  some  such  road  as  this,  without  ignor- 
ing in  any  way  the  value  of  corroborative  lines 
of  reasoning,  that  the  man  of  the  simple  Chris- 
tian life,  who  is  neither  historical  and  literary 
critic,  or  scientist,  or  philosopher,  may  find  his 
way,  by  a  road  genuinely  rational  and  genuinely 
ethical,  into  the  very  presence  of  God,  and  into 
the  assurance  of  the  greatest  facts  and  doctrines 
of  the  spiritual  life.  This  road  is  not  a  way  to 
be  travelled  only  by  the  ingenious  reasoner; 
many  a  simple  and  unlearned  soul  has  trod  it 
confidently,  even  though  unconsciously.  It  has 
been  for  him,  as  it  must  ultimately  be  for  us 
all,  not  so  much  a  matter  of  subtle  inference, 
as  of  immediate  and  direct  spiritual  perception. 
He  has  found  in  Christ  his  Lord  so  great  a  fact, 
that  all  else  that  is  much  worth  while  is  given 
him  in  Christ.  And  his  argument,  if  he  has 
one,  is  the  very  simple  one  of  Paul,  "How  shall 
He  not  also  with  him  freely  give  us  all  things?" 


INDEX 


Absolute,  as  applied  to   God,   72. 

a    Kempis,    quoted,    147. 

Amos,   referred  to,  86,   203. 

Analogy,  domination  by,  59,  194; 
of  religious  life  to  personal  rela- 
tion,   118. 

Annals  of  a  Quiet  Neighborhood, 
MacDonald,    134. 

Anthropomorphism,    in    religion,    78. 

Arguments  for  existence  of  God, 
202. 

Asceticism,  referred  to,  in  Rational 
Living,   24. 

Belief,   practical    nature   of  ail,   52. 

Bible,    Edmond    Sherer   on   the,    222. 

Bibliotheca  Sacra,  quoted,  67. 

Birrell,  Augustine,  quoted,  43;  on 
sentimental   sceptics,   45. 

Bodily  conditions,  ignoring  of,  23; 
of  spiritual  life,  24;  dissatis- 
faction from  disregard  of,  25; 
limitations   of,    126. 

Bowne,  B.  P.,  on  philosophical  scep- 
ticism, 48;  on  practical  nature  of 
belief,    52. 

Bradley,    referred    to,   209. 

Browning,  quoted,  77,  130,  135, 
154,    iS9;   referred  to,    141,   154. 

Bruce,    quoted,    167. 

Bushnell,  referred  to,   91. 

Causal  connections,  80. 

Changed      Life,      The,     Drummond, 

quoted,    106;   referred   to,  227. 
Childe    Roland,     Browning,     quoted, 

135. 
Christ,    supreme    revelation    in,    99; 
confession     of,     99;     character     of 
God  revealed  in,   114,  118;  not  an 
ascetic,       172;       contrasted       with 


Plato,  175;  ethical  ideals  of,  176; 
main  argument  for  God  in,  202; 
need  of  modern  man  met  only  in, 
215;  communion  with  God  through, 
218;  staying  in  the  presence  of, 
224;  appeal  of  life  of,  226;  doc- 
trine as  an  expression  of  experi- 
ence with,  231;  preexistence, 
atonement,  etc.,  234;  immorality 
of,  237;  quality  of  life  of,  242; 
central  message  of,  243;  ethical 
insistence   of,   244. 

Christian  doctrines,  as  to  particular, 
229. 

Christian  point  of  view,  8;  philo- 
sophical defense  of,  8;  why  hard 
to  hold,  9;  real  and  great  diffi- 
culty   for   the,    11. 

Christian  Viezv  of  God  and  the 
World,  The,  Orr,  quoted,    136. 

Christianity  and  History,  Harnack, 
quoted,  247,   249. 

Christianity,  must  endure  test  of 
the  historical  spirit,  166;  of 
philosophical  investigation,  167; 
profoundly  ethical,   177. 

Church  and  the  Changing  Order, 
The,  Shailer  Mathews,  referred 
to,    239. 

Coe,   G.   A.,  quoted,   170. 

Communion  with  God,  215;  rational 
and  ethical,  216;  through  Christ, 
in  New  Testament,  218. 

Communion  with  God,  Herrmann, 
quoted,    115,    149,   215,    216,   217. 

Complexity  of  life,  ignoring  of,  27; 
effect  on  religion  and  theology, 
27;  effect  on  the  religious  con- 
sciousness, 28. 

Concrete,  cannot  be  reached  by 
demonstration,    200. 


251 


252 


INDEX 


Conditions,    failure   to    fulfil,    109. 
Cornill,   quoted,   203. 
Cosmological    proof,    204. 
Creed,  Seth  Pattison  on,  44. 

Davenport,  F.   M.,  quoted,  29. 

Demonstration,  absolute,  not  pos- 
sible in  concrete  life,  3S;  in 
spiritual  life,   39. 

Dialectic  of  Pure  Practical  Reason, 
Kant,   quoted,    152. 

Difference  between  philosophical  and 
religious   problems,   85. 

Difference  between  scientific  and 
religious  problems,  79. 

Difficulty  in  the  conception  of  God, 
72. 

Doctrine,  as  expression  of  experi- 
ence with  Christ,  231;  of  personal 
immortality,  237;  Christ's,  of  un- 
limited  self-sacrifice,   245. 

Doctrines,  as  to  particular  Christian, 
229. 

Drummond,  referred  to,  103,  227; 
quoted,    106. 

Emerson,  referred  to,   157. 

Emotions,  strained  and  sham  and 
passive,    set    aside,    177. 

Encyclopedia  Britannica,  quoted  on 
Scepticism,   49. 

Epistcmology,   problems   of,   64. 

Essay  Concerning  Human  Under- 
standing,  Locke,   quoted,   124. 

Everett,  C.  C,  quoted  on  relativity 
of  thought,  66;   referred  to,   167. 

Evil,   problem   of,    155. 

Experience,  necessary  in  religion, 
40;  in  other  spheres,  41;  restric- 
tion of  science  to,   79. 

External  rules,  in  spiritual  life,   105. 

Faith,    physiological    effects    of,    26; 

religious,    way    to,     46;     need     <  >  f , 

182. 
fallacy,  psychologist's,    156. 
fatigue,   effects   of,    127. 


Eichte,  referred  to,   154. 
Finiteness,   a   limit  to    insight,   125. 
Freedom,    question   of,    156. 
Friendship,   conditions   of,    117. 

Generation,   alternate,   48. 

God,  universal  need  of,  3,  198;  fact 
of,  8;  personal  relation  to,  8,  213; 
obscurity  of,  n;  existence  of,  50; 
relativity  of  our  conceptions  of, 
65;  difficulty  in  the  conception  of, 
72 ;  application  of  term  "abso- 
lute," 72;  "unchangeable,"  73; 
"Infinite,"  74;  personality  of, 
74;  revelation  of,  in  Christ,  114, 
118;  relation  to,  119;  reverence 
of,  for  human  personality,  149; 
need  of  hidden,  152;  question  of 
existence  and  love  of,  158;  com- 
munion with,  186,  215;  strict 
proof  for,  impossible,  199;  main 
lines  of  argument  for,  202  ff. ; 
argument  from  Christ,  202;  from 
the  prophets,  203;  defects  in  or- 
dinary proofs  of,  204;  proof  of, 
in  our  standard  of  truth,  204; 
communion  with,  through  Christ, 
232;   as  Father,   244. 

Habit,    physical    basis    of,    26. 
Harnack,  quoted,  237,  240,  247,  249. 
Herrmann,     quoted,     96,     115,-  149, 

215,   216,    217;   referred  to,   233. 
Hibbert  Journal,  referred  to,   172. 
Ilinton,   referred  to,  34. 
Hoffding,   quoted,   28. 
Honesty,    need    of,    in    coming    into 

values,   112. 
Hosea,    referred   to,   86,  203. 
Hume,  referred  to,  28,  80. 

Image,  danger  of  domination  by,  60. 

Immortality,  question  of,  157;  quo- 
tation from  Tennyson  on,  207; 
Harnack  on,  237;  grounded  in 
Christ,    238,    246;     Matheson    on. 


INDEX 


253 


241 ;  faith  in,  linked  with  the 
ethical,  245. 

"Impersonal    Spirit,"    76. 

Independent,  The,  quoted,  30;  re- 
ferred   to,    157. 

Infinite,   applied   to   God,   75. 

"Infinite   Substance,"    76. 

[ntellectualism,  abstract,  526°.,   56ft'., 

63,    195- 
Interaction,  problem  of,  61. 
Introduction  to  Philosophy,  Paulsen, 

quoted,   75,  87,   206. 
Isaiah,   referred  to,   86. 

James,  William,  on  value  of  reli- 
gious opinions,  7;  on  the  rein- 
statement of  the  vague  and  in- 
articulate, 27;  referred  to,  83, 
154;    quoted,    207. 

Jesus  (See  also  Christ),  referred  to, 
86;   attitude  on  emotion,  96,   177. 

lob,    quoted,    11. 

John,  referred  to,  on  preexistence 
of  Christ,  234. 

Kant,  referred  to,  49,  137,  145; 
quoted,   152. 

Knowledge,  never  merely  passive, 
32;  relation  between  that  of 
outer  and  spiritual  worlds,  34; 
gradual  development  of,  36;  rela- 
tivity of,  66. 

Lange,  referred  to,  83. 

Law,   sense  of,  in   religion,   169. 

Laws,  hypostasizing  of,  63,  195; 
recognition   of,    102. 

Leuba,   referred   to,   29. 

Liberal,  the  radical,  15;  emphasis  on 
unity,    16. 

Liberty,  in  spiritual  life,   105. 

Life,   complexity  of,    172. 

Limitations  and  fluctuations  of  our 
natures,  121,  123,  197;  due  to 
our  finiteness,  125;  in  bodily  and 
psychical  conditions,  126;  bearing 
on  spiritual   life,   131. 

Living,    common    conditions  of,    18. 


Locke,  referred  to,  58;  quoted,  124. 
Logical  fallacies,  some  common,  56. 
Lotze,  on   fanaticism,   5;   quoted,  35, 

48,   60,   74,   84,    143,   201,  205;    r« 

f erred  to,   76,    142. 
Love,  as  essence  of  life,  226. 

MacDonald,    George,    quoted,    134. 

Magical  inheritance,  not  possible  in 
spiritual   life,    102. 

Alan's  Place  in  the  Cosmos,  Seth 
Pattison,   quoted,   44,    144. 

Materialism,    abandonment   of,   63. 

Mathematical    proofs,    210. 

Mathematico-mechanical  view  of  the 
world,  63,   194. 

Mathematics,    demonstration    in,    38. 

Matheson,  on  immortality  of  Christ, 
quoted,   241. 

Maxwell,  Clerk,  quoted,  47. 

Metaphysics,   problems   of,    64. 

Mierocosmus,  The,  Lotze,  quoted, 
35,    48,   60,    143. 

Mill,  John   Stuart,   quoted,    175. 

Mind,    influence   over   body,    26. 

Misconceptions  of  spiritual  life, 
two  classes,  16;  from  ignoring 
the  likeness  of  the  spiritual  life 
to  the  rest  of  life,  17,  21;  from 
ignoring  bodily  conditions,  23  ff. ; 
from  ignoring  psychical  condi- 
tions, 27;  spiritual  life  as  life  of 
strain,    9off. 

Modesty,  need  of,  in  coming  into 
values,    112. 

"Moral    World   Order,"    76. 

More,   Paul   E.,   referred   to,    157. 

Mornings  in  the  College  Chapel, 
Peabody,    quoted,    50. 

Miinsterberg,    referred   to,    83,    243. 

Muscular    activity   and    will,      6. 

Nash,   IT.    S.,  quoted,    185. 
Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,    Ward, 

referred    to,    62,    68;    quoted,    on 

knowledge,    69. 


254 


INDEX 


Objections,    some    traditional,   63. 

Obscurity  of  God,  needed,  197; 
moral   reasons   for,    200. 

Ontological  proof,   204. 

Organization  and  machinery  in 
religious   work,    107. 

Orr,   quoted,   136. 

Orthodox,  emphasis  of  the,  on  in- 
dividuality   of    religion,     16. 

Outlines  of  the  Philosophy  of  Re- 
ligion,  Lotze,   quoted,    74,  84. 

Pascal,    quoted,    150. 

Pattison,    Seth,   quoted,   44,   49,    144- 

Paul,     referred    to,    on    preexistence 

of  Christ,   234. 
Paulsen,    quoted    on    pantheism,    75; 

referred    to,    78,    So;    quoted,    87, 

183,   206. 
Peabody,  F.  G.,  quoted,  50. 
Person,    the    value    and    sacredness 

of,   in    religion,    170. 
Personal    relation,    conditions    of    a 

deepening,    117. 
Personal     and     Ideal     Elements     in 

Education,   King,   referred  to,   39; 

quoted    on     man's    essential     need 

of  religion,    182. 
Personality,   applied   to   God,   73. 
Pfleiderer,   referred  to,    15. 
Phenomena,     restriction     of     science 

to,   81. 
Philosophical      and      religious      prob- 
lems,   difference    between,    85. 
Philosophy,    leading   up    to    theology, 

4;   restrictions  of,  86,  87;   relation 

to  science,  88;   test  applied  by,  to 

religion,    167. 
Philosophy      of       Theism,       Bowne, 

quoted,  55. 
Physicus,   quoted,    158. 
Plato,    referred    to,     123,     125,     126; 

contrasted   with    Christ,    175. 
Plutarch,  referred  to,  131. 
Poetry    of    Arthur    Symonds,     The, 

More,  referred  to,   157. 
Practical   nature   of  all   belief,   52. 


Prayer,  chief  difficulty  in,  33. 

Presumptive    evidence,    163. 

Problem  of  evil,    155. 

Prophets,    The,   Cornill,   quoted,  203. 

Protestant  procedure,  in  religious 
life,  92. 

Psychical  conditions,  limitations  of, 
126. 

Psychological  conditions  of  sense  of 
reality,   27ff. 

Psychologist's  fallacy,    156. 

Psychology,   James,  quoted,   207. 

Psychology,  four  great  inferences 
from,  27;  recognition  of  the  prac- 
tical,   and   of    the   whole   man,   46. 

Purinton,   referred   to,    199. 

Questionings,  a  proof  of  reality,  156. 

Rational  Living,  King,  reference  to 
asceticism,  24,  172;  reference  to 
four  inferences  from  psychology, 
27;  reference  to  unity  of  the 
mind,  31;  on  the  importance  of 
action,  37;  on  solution  of  ulti- 
mate problems,  38;  on  influence 
of    practical    interests,    52. 

Real,  concreteness  of  the,    179. 

Reality,  question  as  to  meaning 
of,  7;  requirements  for,  in  spirit- 
ual life,  7;  necessity  of  ex- 
perience for,  40;  feeling  in,  128; 
questionings,  a  proof  of,  156; 
way  into,  161;  concreteness  of, 
56,    179- 

Reason,  trustworthiness  of,  66; 
Everett  on,  66. 

Reconstruction  in  Theology,  King, 
referred   to,   76. 

Relativity  of  human  knowledge,  47, 

6S. 
Religion,    not    apart    from    life,    29; 

must  meet   test  of  modern  trends 

of    thought,    166;    man's    essential 

need   of,    181. 
Religion    of    a    Mature    Mind,    The, 

G.  A.  Coe,  quoted,   170. 


INDEX 


255 


Religious  faith,  way  to,  46;  prob- 
lems of,  85;  need  of  unobtrusive- 
ness   of  spiritual   in,    147. 

Religious  life,  the  needed  emphases 
in  modern,  220;  ethical,  220; 
Christian,  220;  social,  220;  bib- 
lical, 221;  wrought  out  in  ex- 
perience,  222. 

Renan,   referred  to,    145. 

Richard,  Timothy,  on  conversion, 
30. 

Ritschl,    referred    to,    167,    233. 

Romanes,    quoted,    174. 

Rules,  external,  105;  emphasis  on, 
107. 

Saul,   Browning,   quoted,   77. 
Scepticism,     Bowne     on,     48;     Seth 

Pattison   on,    49. 
Scherer,     Edmond,     quoted     on     the 

Bible,  222. 
Schopenhauer,    referred    to,    210. 
Science    of    Thought,    The,    Everett, 

quoted,    66. 
Science's      threefold     restriction     of 

itself,   79. 
Scientific      problem,      never      purely 

intellectual,    83. 
Selective  activity,   50. 
"Self-developing    Idea,"    76. 
Seth,  James,   referred   to,   172. 
Shorthouse,     quoted,     seeking     after 

truth,   45. 
Similarity  between  spiritual  life  and 

other   spheres,    141. 
Simon,   D.    W.,   quoted,   67. 
Smyth,    Newman,   quoted,    44. 
Social     service,     need     of     religious 

faith  in,    185. 
Speculative  power,  42. 
Spencer,   referred  to,   209. 
Spiritual    life,    reality    of,     7;    three 

requirements  for  reality  of,  7; 
definition  of,  7;  unreality  of,  8, 
12;  relation  of,  to  bodily  condi- 
tions, 25;  knowledge  of,  a  grad- 
ual growth,  36;  makes  no  peculiar 


demand-,  55;  not  a  life  of  strain, 
90;  not  a  life  of  stress  of  feeling 
or  of  attention,  92;  not  a  life  of 
imitation,  98;  not  a  life  of  mag- 
ical inheritance,  102;  not  a  life 
of  external  rules,  105;  a  personal 
relation  to  God,  106;  conditions 
of,  11 1 ;  bearing  of  limitations 
and  fluctuations  on,  131;  gradual 
growth  in,  134;  a  purposed  seem- 
ing unreality  of,  139;  similarity 
to  other  spheres,  141;  element  of 
struggle  in,  143;  connected  with 
present  trends  of  thought,  165, 
172;  facing  the  facts  of  the,  193; 
method   of  the,   224. 

Spiritual  Romance  of  John  Ingle- 
sant,    Shorthouse,    quoted,    45. 

Strain,  psychological  impossibility 
of  life   of,  95. 

Sunday   School   Times,   quoted,    10. 

Teleological  proof,  204. 

Temptation,   power   of  repeated,   143. 

Tennyson,  quoted,   207. 

Theistic  hypothesis,  open  to  objec- 
tion, 8;  must  recognize  expression 
of  God's  will  in  men,  23 ;  not 
peculiar  in  its  difficulties,  64; 
argument  for,  189;  limitations  of, 
209. 

Theologian,  task  of,  5;  problem  of, 
6. 

Theology,  as  science  and  philosophy 
of  religion,  4;  queen  of  the 
sciences,  4;  chief  business  of,  5; 
culmination  of  science  and  phil- 
osophy,   89. 

Theology  and  the  Social  Conscious- 
ness, King,  referred  to,  52,  116, 
171. 

Theory  of  Thought  and  Knowledge, 
Bowne,  quoted,  48. 

Thoughts  and  Letters,  Pascal, 
quoted,    150. 

Trends  of  thought,  the  test  of 
present,    165,   172. 


256 


INDEX 


Truth,  our  standard  of,  205. 
"Truths  eternal,"   208. 
Tyndall,  quoted,   136. 

Unbelief,   fluctuation   in,    129. 
Unchangeableness,    applied    to    God, 

73* 

Unity,  final,  required,  132;  in  view 
of  world,  168;  of  the  mind,  174; 
in    expression    of    faith,    235. 

Unity  of  the  mind,  ignoring  the, 
30. 

Unobtrusiveness  of  the  spiritual, 
special   need   of,    147. 

Unreality  of  spiritual  life,  causes  of, 
13,  19;  removable  causes  of,  13, 
14;  unremovable,  but  recognizable, 
causes  of,  13,  14,  123;  a  pur- 
posed seeming,  139;  a  factor  in 
moral  and  spiritual  training,  141, 
155;  seeming,  a  ground   for  trust, 


150;   failure  to   fulfil  natural  con- 
ditions, a  cause  of,    196. 

Values,  the  way  into  the  great,  1 1 1 ; 
introduction  to,  112;  reached  by 
honesty  and  modesty,  112;  reached 
by  staying  in  their  presence,  113; 
differences  in  spheres  of,  114; 
analogy  of  spiritual  life  to  other, 
116. 

Ward,    referred   to,   62,   68;   quoted, 

69. 
What     is     Christianity?      Harnack, 

quoted,  238,  240, 
Whitman,   quoted,   41. 
Will,     and     muscular     activity,     26; 

and   action,    32,    178;    place   of,    in 

life,    178. 
Words,   domination   by,   57,   194. 
Wordsworth,  referred  to,   157. 


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THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
4338  64-66  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


By  the 

Rev.  GEORGE  HOLLEY  GILBERT,  D.D. 

Interpretation  of  the  Bible 

"A  short  history  by  the  author  of  "The  Student's  Life  of 
Jesus,"  etc.  That  the  interpretation  of  a  work  should  be  of 
such  vital  value  for  good  or  evil,  and  yet  that  there  should 
be  absolutely  no  account  in  English  of  the  history  of  such 
interpretation  is  certainly  curious.  At  least  a  suggestion  of 
this  interesting  history  Dr.  Gilbert  aims  to  supply. 

Cloth,  l2?no,  $1.25  net;  by  mail,  $1-35 

The  Revelation  of  Jesus 

"This  is  the  most  noteworthy  historical  study  of  the  New 
Testament  Sources  of  Christian  doctrine  that  has  appeared  in 
English  since  the  publication  of  Professor  McGiffert's  'The 
Apostolic  Age.'" — The  Outlook. 

The  First  Interpreters  of  Jesus 

"Nothing  could  be  fairer  than  the  effort  made  by  Professor 
Gilbert  to  draw  out  the  thought  of  the  first  interpreters  of 
Christ  without  injecting  his  own  predilections ;  and  the  re- 
sult is  illuminative  and  helpful." — The  Independent. 

The  Student's  Life  of  Jesus 

"Acuteness,  candor,  and  conspicuous  fidelity  to  its  purpose 
are  the  notable  characteristics  of  this  .  .  .  useful  book." 

— Congngationalist 

The  Student's  Life  of  Paul 

"We  unreservedly  and  heartily  commend  this  volume." 

— Zion's  Herald 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers,  64-66  Fifth  Avenue,  NEW  YORK  5123 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


AUG  2  0   1956 


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